Back in February, in Mobile World Congress 2017, we were pleased to announce the Sailfish OS for Sony Xperia project in collaboration with Sony Open Devices Program. Here’s an update to the project and progress:

Our development teams have worked hard on the project, so that we can start the delivery of the downloadable Sailfish OS to all of you waiting to run our operating system on this great device. The progress has been good, but in all honesty it has not lacked challenges. There are some clear development areas that still need work, and challenges, the biggest of them being the support for Android apps. Challenges also include making it easy enough for common users to install Sailfish OS onto their devices. Xperia X is the first 64-bit ARM device we are running Sailfish OS on, and that has made this project much more unpredictable to implement than a lot of our recent device projects have been.

First deliveries starts in July

Despite the challenges, we are starting to deliver the software to first community members in a few weeks in July: our Cbeta testing group will get the first opportunity to test Sailfish OS on a Sony Xperia X device once we have started the Cbeta testing for the Sailfish OS 2.1.2 release. If you’re in the group, expect to hear from us soon about it.

The Cbeta group is the closest community development group for Jolla – it’s a group with whom we share our work first, and who rigorously work with us to iron out issues, find bugs etc. For Cbeta, we’ve hand picked a small group of very active community members that we know well. If you are active in the community, like doing community ports of Sailfish OS to other devices, contribute to development, translate Sailfish OS to new languages, help in TJC to answer questions, or attend community events, then you may get noticed by us, and when there is opportunity to expand the group you can be asked to join the Cbeta group. Our community is very important to us and we value all contributions, but we still need to keep the Cbeta group quite small so that we can properly handle the feedback, have confidentiality, and resolve any issues due to bugs of the early releases.

The exact schedule for the next phase, i.e. wider delivery to our community, depends on how the development progresses and on the feedback we get from the Cbeta testing. From the Cbeta testing we are ready to move onto the public release once we’re certain that main features like the Android app compatibility are working, the device can be used as a daily device, Jolla Store can be used for downloading apps, and that SW update process works. And that there are no serious bugs of course.

We also need an easy solution for users to install the operating system on their devices. At first, the releases will be more suitable for hackers and advanced users but we shall make it easier in the next phases to wider groups. We’ll update the situation and schedule with you once the Cbeta testing starts.

Supported devices

Many of you have been curious about us supporting other Xperia devices like Xperia X Compact and when would be the right time to get a suitable target device. For now we want to focus on getting the Xperia X project out with good quality and keep our limited resources focused on it. Once we have completed the work on the Xperia X single SIM version, we will consider how to proceed with supporting other Xperia devices.

We can officially support only a limited amount of different community devices. Therefore, we need to be smart about the next devices as support for those devices may be coming a lot later than support for the first device. When we plan the supported next Sony device after Xperia X we need to consider a few things: do we choose hardware with similar chipset or not (supporting different chipset vendor would be a lot more work), how popular is the device, and of course we need to check if the community has progressed well with some certain device port. In this case, it has potential to be the next officially supported device.

Lastly: one of our community members just recently suggested an idea of offering Sailfish OS for Sony Xperia software as one type of compensation alternative in the Jolla Tablet refund program. This sounds like a great idea, and we have also thought about it. But first, we need to evaluate how feasible it is, and in what schedule it could be done. We’d also be happy to hear what you others think of the idea! Please let us know in the comments below, or if you do not wish to comment publicly you can also email us to community(at)jolla(dot)com.

Stay tuned on the project and its progress! It takes some time to cook well from proper ingredients but it will be exciting and fun!

On behalf of the whole team,Vesku

Update:

FAQ:

As we have been receiving a lot of questions regarding this blog post, we found it fitting to add a “frequently asked questions” update to this post, addressing some concerns gathering the matter.

Q: Why didn’t you communicate this information earlier?

A: There are still many open questions and we learn more each week. We wanted to provide you an update on current status now, since it is the end of Q2, which was announced as our original target. We are sorry that this has been delayed and we will announce full details on commercial program once we have everything in place.

Q: Is Jolla selling Sony Xperia X pre-loaded with Sailfish OS?

A: In the first phase we will be doing a downloadable Sailfish OS for that requires the user to purchase their own device and install the operating system on it. As mentioned on the post, we are doing our best to make the installation process as simple as possible for the common user. Jolla is an operating system vendor and we are not directly selling devices anymore.

Q: What will be the price of the Downloadable Sailfish OS ?

A: We are going to announce the commercial details on price, and what is going to be included closer to the release. The target is that the price will include an officially supported release of the Sailfish OS, including mandatory 3rd party licenses.

Q: Does it matter where we buy the device? Does it have to be unlocked?

A: It is advised to purchase a device with no carrier lock or legal bond in order to make the process much easier. If you are purchasing the phone from your carrier, please make sure there are no extra restrictions applied by the carrier.

Q: Which exact model of Sony Xperia X should we purchase prior to the launch of the OS?

A: F5121 single SIM version is the model we are developing on. It should be noted that there is a possibility of details being changed until we announce the commercial details, therefore our advice would be to wait for the announcement before buying the device, just to be completely sure.

Q: Can I buy a Dual-SIM variant and install the OS on it anyway and use one SIM slot only?

A: You shouldn’t do that. We are not testing or supporting the Dual-SIM variant, since we need to concentrate on getting the single SIM device working well.

Q: What happens to the device’s warranty when we install Sailfish OS on it?

A: Sony Open Devices has their own terms for handling unlocked devices, and since installing Sailfish OS requires unlocking of the device, those terms will apply. You can read them by clicking here.

Update [31/7/2017]

We have been working hard to fulfill our promise of delivering the first images during July, and as the month of July comes to an end, we now have the images ready to be handed over to Cbeta group for the initial verification and testing. Having the software ready for the public depends on the findings during this round of testing done with Cbeta group. This is our first official release that we provide for a device that doesn’t come pre-loaded with Sailfish OS. We have already learned a lot in the process, so bear with us a bit longer.

This is the best possible Idea at all:
”
Lastly: one of our community members just recently suggested an idea of offering Sailfish OS for Sony Xperia software as one type of compensation alternative in the Jolla Tablet refund program.
”
Please try to get working!

Yes. As stated on the post, we have faced challenges especially with Android app compatibility part of the deal since this is the first 64-bit device that we are porting this feature on. Therefore, we are going to get extra help from our C-beta to be able to make this available faster to the consumers.

Since end of February was when we were at the Mobile World Congress and wanted to have a semi-working device to show to the convention and potential future customers. And again, you have to consider that it was the very end of February so practically March!

If anyone should do their homework it is you it seems. Back when they failed with the tablet project they was very clear that they will _try_ to refund but that it would take time. It wasn’t even certain everyone would get a refund. Back then the whole company was at risk. So they have refunded people as they have gotten capital. They could have just said fuck it! as that would be aligned with risk crowdfunders take …but they didn’t. They work their ass off so that they can make things right.

Many of us SailFish OS/Jolla enthusiast want to have SailFish with Android integration. I can not speak for the rest, but I think it is the majority. The community ports do not have Android, so people, that do not need it, could easily go for community port and any other hardware.

I am not saying ignore Android compatibility on Sailfish OS. Just pointing out that if that is the feature delaying the release of Sailfish OS on Sony Xperia then release it in the next version.

Right now, if a Sailfish without Android compatibility is ready, then release it (with the promise that you will get Android Compatibility in a future release). A release on Xperia will generate motivation and enthusiasm in both the developers and the community.

It is also better in terms of marketing – 2 releases are better than one delayed release.

Did you ever consider the opposite might be true? A public outcry would happen “We were promised full Sailfish OS experienced but instead got a version without Android!”. Now Jolla doesn’t want that kind of shitstorm again.

I think that ‘outcry’ would be easier to handle. I am not saying abandon Android support. Jolla currently has a credibility issue due to the tablet fiasco. If it again dithers on delivering again, it further causes a loss of trust in Jolla. Atleast if Jolla releases something on time – Jolla can get back some of that credibility. And even if they get some negative publicity that’s still good for Jolla. The update with android support can tide over that and generate better publicity.

The vast majority of apps that people really need (in my case whatsapp) and are not ported to sailfish os don’t use nativescript. It would be a much greater time-waste to take time from the android-compatibility-layer to support a framework that’s not used by many of these killer-apps while an android-layer will make many more app run (including those created using nativescript).

The assumption that vendors would start supporting their software on sailfish os even if they use nativescript is a gamble at best.

Sailfish OS can’t get new users if they’re instantly put of by the lack of a few certain apps.

They already have the software to get android-apps to run and they have shown with former smartphones that they are certainly capable of getting it to work well.

Just to chime in here, NativeScript does not seem to be widely used, however, React Native certainly is, and major app developers are using it in their iOS and Android apps e.g. Facebook, Airbnb, Instagram and more I’m sure. I am building apps now using both React Native for UI and main logic, and C++ for performance critical cross-platform code e.g. audio processing. It would be great to be able to use React Native also on SailfishOS, although I imagine a lot of work to be involved!

So, I am delighted! NOW, we know that there is no device to buy from jolla, there is no finished software working on Xperia and no fixed time limit until the main issues are solved.
Ergo: We have to wait again until there will be an announcement about something.

#James: Sorry James, but the group here expected at least a device with sailfishOS on it, no matter if it is supporting android or not. I expected a purely sailfishOS device that works.

All us non-programming idiots will just sit and get strung along until the next announcement, no doubt it will be more than 2+ months and that will no doubt tell us that they are close to a general release!

I understand, but unfortunately that is not what everyone wants. Most of the users rely on Android support at least for some particular applications and those form the bigger part of the community. Therefore releasing the device with only Sailfish OS and no Android compatibility would result backfire.

I realise I may have unintentionally sounded too harsh with my previous comment, but the point is that 2 releases is better than one long delayed release somewhere in the future.

If a Sailfish OS version without Android compatibility is ready and fully functional, then it should be released first. Subsequently, when the Android compatibility layer is ready, it can be released in the next version.

Full Sailfish OS experience was promised and that includes Android support. There would be a big outcry if it was released without it. There are many community ports that are very stable but as James said, most of the community is interested in the official ones due to the Android support.

@THEODOSIUS …hahahaha .. the group expected ?
hahahaha
You might want to lower your expectations and standards if you EVER want to use anything from this company.

Only thing they are good in is misleading you and telling a lot of B.S. and utterly lies.

The group of Tablet Backers expected (and were promised by the co-founder and top management Antti Saarnio ) a Tablet more than 3 years ago .. we are still waiting on our full refunds. Keep this in mind when you start expecting something of this malicious company !

So only thing you truly can expect are empty / false promises and lies !

@Maikel needs a full refund!
Ok, I awaited…
I am one of the 10.000 backers… We act like free debt financing idiots, to save money of the investors. It schould have been the task of the investors to finance the tablet project and not of customers.
The still remain refund will probably newer come if jolla will not be able to handle the development issues in the very close future.
As liquidity is low (probably one strategy of the investors) their will be no cash refund but rather a price reduction offer of the next software to be installed on a (what ever low spec. and outdated)device.
Dreaming of the big business and investing into the business like a hungry man, does not fit together.
The only things that count now are FACTS! Nothing else.

@James Noori: From the questions that flooded all channels since MWC, it was clear that this question (“Should I buy an Xperia myself or will Jolla sell them”) was one of the most important ones.

It takes a certain skill not to answer this question directly and unambiguously in the one blog post everybody has been waiting for. Instead, Jolla again manages to rely on “inplied” information that needs to be explained, will be misunderstood, whatever.

I understand many eyes had to carefully read this article before it was published. What for?

Ossi: It’s the nature of every blog post. There is a draft, then there are people responsible for the particular project looking over the draft and changing things (which takes time), then there is the spellcheck and grammatical check, and then publish. So naturally, a lot of people look over each post for many reasons.

As for the question, it was not clear how we were going to release the OS, was it going to be pre-loaded or available to download or both. We had to make sure which one is the most feasible one for us to do (And of course it’s not only Jolla deciding these things. Sony has half of the story as well!) all of this takes a long time which can’t really be controlled how long/short it is gonna be.

But now, it is very clear that it will be a downloadable image. I still don’t understand what was vague in this statement.

Well if it was so clear, there wouldn’t be several people asking about it on this very blog post. A clear statement is something like : “Ok, after discussing with Sony, we can now tell you that the OS will be released as a downloadable image. You will have to pay for it but the price cannot be communicated for now [...]“

And about the price, I can understand technical issues, but I’m really surprised that the price isn’t decided yet, at the date it was targeted to be launched. I hope it’s because management is overloaded by new clients!

@James Noori: Yes, I understand that ‘grammar’ and ‘spelling’ etc. are a very important reason to have such a blog post checked and double checked before publishing. However, ‘content’ would deserve the same diligence. (I mean, come on: This is not the first time a Jolla blog post was totally misunderstood. You do have a problem in this regard.)

As for the one example at hand: Long before you guys even drafted this post, you knew that the community discussed the following possibilities:

1. OS image will be available as a download only. Jolla will not sell Xperia devices at all.

2. No download image will be available. Jolla will sell devices with SailfishOS pre-installed.

3. Both options will be available, the customer will be able to choose.

Now that this blog post mentions “the downloadable Sailfish OS”, this rules out option #2. It still (at least by my logic) leaves room for #3, which means those who hoped for a “all in one solution” by Jolla (phone with OS pre-installed) had no reason to read it as “Jolla will not sell devices with OS pre-installed”.

I hope this explains it. The many questions concerning this topic are proof that it *was* in fact vague.

I do believe you when you say you don’t understand what was vague… It’s just that you knew more than we did before you read the blog post.

Completely agree with this comment. For the reasons stated, the blog post was not clear at all on whether just an image or also a pre-loaded device would be offered. I had to read the comment section to finally have clear information.

Ossi1967 ..
WUT !! You funny clown / Fanboy did you finally seen the light ?
Even you are seeing this company for what it truly is ? Weighing every word to try to convince the community they are doing great stuff but actually are selling B.S. ??

I am so happy for you, you finally see what this company is all about ..
Welcome back to the real world my friend !

I agree with ossi1967 above. Can we have a definite “yes” (or possibly “no”) to the question “May we buy the device ourselves”? Moreover, which kind of device? No brand, branded but unlocked, or vendor SIM-locked are the same, or should we stay clear of SIM-locked or possibly even of branded unlocked devices?

so the thing that I want to know is that if I buy an unlocked xperia X will I 100% at some point be able to download SF OS on it? I desperately need new hardware but don’t want to commit to a purchase before I know for sure that it will be compatible at some point

Thanks @jamesnoori and rest of jolla for sony project so sailfish OS can spread to more places and countries im so excited and wish to just happily donate my second half of tablet money to the sailfish OS project i believe in a open alternative OS world the world needs jolla to succeed lets do it as a community togther 1 2 3 Jolla

This comment was left before the FAQ was released. The reason we are recommending everyone to wait until the actual announcement (this is not an announcement post. This is just an update on the project) is that we are taking precautions just in case something changes that we are yet to know ourselves. As said before, there are a ton of things that have the potential of going wrong in these projects. So again, you can go out and buy the device, sure, but it is recommended to wait until we actually tell you to do so and are 100% confident in every aspect of the project. Hope tis clears things up a bit more.

But it might be a good idea to have a timeline, say: we have internally agreed and resources allocated to make X, Compact and XZ (whatever) work this year. Not: maybe we get Sailfish on Xperia X working as a 20% side-project before it disappears completely from the shelves and maybe you get some image or source code, perhaps not.

It might be impossible to find Xperia X in 1-2 months and it’s not clear how far along you are or what other models you’re working on.

If you read the beginning of the second paragraph carefully, your answer lies within There will be a downloadable Sailfish OS image for your Xperia X if you have already bought it. The possibility of us selling the device is very close to zero.

So, I must buy at a high price a device, price which includes development of Sony tailored android, just to remove the original OS, which may void the warranty, and pay to install Sailfish OS, with the risk of bricking the device !
I just want to buy a device with SailfishOS installed and working and 2 years warranty !

Thank you for your comment. We have written in the post that we are going to support the single-sim version for now. It is yet unknown if the dual-sim version is going to be supported. We will of course update you if otherwise.

Well…
This info that Sailfish shall be downloadable to single SIM version only of the Xperia X could have been communicated long ago, Jolla has known this likely for ages already.
Now I went already and ordered the dual SIM version (64GB) because if you announce that Xperia X shall be supported, then I believe you and wanted to buy one. Well, I don’t care about the other SIM, because using only one anyway.
But this is something Jolla could answer now will it result in problems although I wouldnt even use SIM slot nr 2?
The thing is Im not putting bets high for Sailfish arriving to other Xperia models other than the exact mentioned in this blogpost anytime this decade… so thats why the dual SIM question…
Thanks for pushing Sailfish forward, I do hope to see it worthwhile option in near future, but for now Jolla 1 with Iijoki and its dalvik is becoming quite museum stuff.
Still using Jolla phone 1 and hope to get a replacement Sailfish powered device..
Please put efforts to dalvik uppdating, it really is a corner stone for Sailfish success.

Just to make sure I understand this correctly: There are major issues. Installing the OS onto the device is one of them. (!) Also, running Android apps, using the Jolla store and receiving updates are problematic. A preview version can be made available in July, the further timeline is unknown. (!)

If I understood all of this correctly:

Why wasn’t it possible to share this information earlier? I hardly believe it came as a total surprise to the Jolla team last Friday when somebody asked “Hey, how do normal users install Sailfish on the device?” and then somebody else asked “And while we’re at it… How do they use Android?”

I said before that I’m totally bewildered by Jolla’s complete lack of communication skills. In fact, what happened was a “Expect to have the device by the end of Q2″ at MWC, then silence, followed by a “We have no idea when a final SFOS-release for the Xperia can be made available” at the end of Q2. Nothing in between.

I’m not saying I didn’t expect it somehow, given Jolla’s history, but still: I couldn’t be more disappointed.

There are no major issues installing the OS on the phone. What Vesku is talking about here is that we want to make it as user friendly for the common user as possible to install it on their phone without the need of a help from a developer.

Running Android apps have been a challenge for us so far since this is the first 64-bit phone that we are porting Alien Dalvik to.

Using Jolla Store and receiving updates are not problematic, but again, we want to make sure that they are as smooth on Xperia devices as they are on the phones we have released so far. There are (naturally) bugs and slight difficulties but nothing unresolvable.

The reason we did not announce this on Friday was that we decided it needed a separate, dedicated post with all the details possible. The summer update post would be too cramped if we wanted to add all this information to it.

We are sorry for your disappointment, but unfortunately the unexpected challenges resulted us delaying the project. There is much more than a simple looking blog post that goes into such a project. We have to be completely sure about the things we are going to publish here and this much of information takes weeks to gather and put in proper words. It is way easier said than done of course, but it is not because we lack communication skills.

I assume you have raw numbers showing that it’s in your best business interest putting so much developing resources into Alien Dalvik for this project? Are the unwashed hordes of Android zombies really going to buy a Sailfish image and flash it themselves? I feel you are trying to cater to the wrong audience, and wasting time doing so – especially if Android compability is essentially the whole reason for the delay.

You have stated yourself that you need to run Android apps. Why not put the Jolla developer team on creating native apps for whatever Android apps it is you feel people need, instead of wasting time on Alien Dalvik? That would surely be a better use of their time. The selling point should be ”you don’t NEED Android”, not “you can still use Android”.

Also, if there are not enough native apps, how about implementing a payment solution for Harbour to incentivize more devs to create native Sailfish apps?

Maybe you don’t know the use most people do with a smartphone. For example, if I want to take public means of transportation without having to bother to find a reseller for a paper ticket, I need to run and Android (or iOS) app on my mobile phone. Won’t you expect that every public transportation company starts writing apps for SFOS? Or maybe I want to access my bank from mobile. Same stuff, you cannot expect all banks to start developing SFOS apps. About myself, I use Waze as a life-saver in the traffic for commuting to/from work. Waze will never run on SFOS. The lack of Android support killed off all other Linux-based mobile OS’s, so for daily use of the phone (for normal people at least) SFOS without Android support is not a viable option.

When I use public transportation such as trains or airplanes I buy the tickets in advance online, with my Linux PC, or with the Sailfish browser. If I’m on the street in a random city wanting to take the metro somewhere, I use the Sailfish browser to look at the itinerary (a separate designated app for each transport company is ridiculously redundant and stupid, just like apps for newspapers for example), then buy a travel pass at the nearest metro station. I pay for parking with SMS. For navigation I use modRana with OSM Scout Server, or even Jolla Maps (since I still have my Jolla1 I can pull it from the repos and install on my Jolla C and Intex, legal or not). Back in the N900 days I used Sygic and also modRana and NavIT.

I do all my banking on my desktop PC. I have no need for banking in my phone, and I’m not sure I would use a native Sailfish banking solution if one was available.

I am living proof having no Android support is a “viable option”. I’ve hardly ever held an Android phone in my hand, never used one in my life, and I get by just fine in this modern world. Nobody NEEDS Android, you are all just shackled to it out of convenience. I prefer to forgo that convenience in order to maintain my integrity. As I said in another post, with Android you sell your soul to Google, your integrity to the American federal government, and your ass to every advertiser in the world who wants a piece of it. If you zombies want to keep doing that, it’d be all well and good except for the fact that you help maintain the Iphone-Android oligopoly that does nothing to benefit FOSS diversity or the end-user.

Okay, I’ll give you that one. However, this turns the discussion into completely different direction, namely what the target market of Sailfish should be. If it’s tech savvy people who are ready to withstand certain discomfort (like what you described), then releasing Sailfish with no Android support is OK. Personally, I would LOVE Jolla to go in that direction.

Unfortunately, Jolla is obviously trying to push Sailfish into general market. And “average joes” will simply laugh at what you are proposing. Hence the seeming need in Dalvik support.

I agree for banking, if your bank don’t propose a proper mobile website nowaday,just find another bank, but for public transportation, there are some advantages of a dedicated app: loading speed (to quickly see your next trains), not taking half the RAM and killing other apps, geolocation (yeah possible in browser but soooo slow), cover actions, …

Even no smartphone is a “viable option” as you describe it. You are forsaking many opportunities offered by Android. My bank, even on a PC, requires an Android app for passcode generation (or a physical token, that I have to carry at all times). Public transportation here only supports apps to buy tickets, no browser. If you are at a time where ticket sellers are closed, you are on your own. Waze has no alternative, since it dynamically calculates the best route and updates it on-the-fly when traffic conditions change – there’s no way you are running it on SFOS without Android support. As I said, if you want you can live with no smartphone, no car, no air conditioning, no flowing water and no toilet. It depends on what you are willing to accept.

Well, you can also be living proof that living in the jungle with nothing but a loincloth and knife is a “viable option”.

For the rest of us, the conveniences that modern mobile technology brings have become indispensable. Android has them. Pure Sailfish doesn’t.

Asking Jolla to develop native Sailfish apps as replacements for the various mobile blockbusters is incredibly naive. Most of those apps rely on proprietary backend architecture that is not open, sometimes even hostile to 3rd-party developers. What happened to Mitakuuluu, the Whatsapp clone again? How do you think Jolla can build a Whatsapp client against Whatsapp’s/Facebook’s explicit resistance? What about the WeChat behemoth, without which life is unthinkable in China? Tencent, the operating company, has never allowed any 3rd-party clients. What about banking apps, Uber, Skype, Bitcoin wallets, popular online games, Threema? What about the countless car and bike sharing services like ZipCar, DriveNow or car2go where you need the official app to unlock the bike or car door or Stripe for accepting credit card payments at your street market booth?

The list is endless and that’s only those that are impossible to port without the original company’s support, no matter how many resources you throw at it.

Add those apps that *could* be ported in theory, but would each require an enormous effort and financial resources. Take smooth offline maps & routing for example. No, OSM Scout Server is not a “smooth” alternative, it’s an ugly workaround. Slow, horrible user experience (how many things do I need to install and settings to tweak just to get it working?), wasting resources (e.g. modRana caches map tiles again that Scout Server already stores locally), street labels cut off at tile borders, missing POIs etc. etc. Have you ever used a modern mobile map on Android or iOS? Even Nokia N9′s map was better than what we have on Sailfish. Why? Because development costs money. Good maps cost money. Good routing databases cost money. On Nokia I could pay for that by *buying* an app. And on Sailfish? There’s a reason offline maps have been the number one request on the Together boards since the very beginning: https://together.jolla.com/questions/scope:all/sort:votes-desc/ Four years later, we still don’t have paid apps and we still don’t have a decent native offline solution.

Your Sailfish maximalist / purist approach may work for a small niche of tech geeks. It’s a disaster for mainstream adoption. Unfortunately a company like Jolla cannot survive on a handful of principled purists who don’t mind living in the proverbial jungle out of idealism. That only works for truly open-source and non-profit projects. Jolla is neither. Jolla needs the mainstream. Jolla needs the “unwashed hordes of Android zombies” if you like it or not.

None of the people I know still use Skype anymore. All of them gradually migrated to more safe (in spyware sense) alternatives as soon as Skype was bought by MS. Right now I have about 300+ contacts in my phonebook, and all of them are offline.

> popular online games

Ever tried to use your phone to read a book, instead of killing your time?

> Threema?

Had to use Wikipedia to get an idea WTF it is, lost interest as soon as I got to the “proprietary encrypted” part. Believing that a closed-source IM app can be any better in protecting privacy just because its “servers are located in Switzerland” is so naïve that it’s almost childish.

> Uber
> What about the countless car and bike sharing services like ZipCar, DriveNow or car2go where you need the official app to unlock the bike or car door

Now this is a valid argument, even though I never needed anything like this (because I have my own car and my own bicycle). These are the Android apps you may actually need Alien Dalvik for.

> What about banking apps

Same as with car sharing. In my case, the mobile app of my bank is one of the 2 Android apps that I ever run, and for me (personally) it wouldn’t feel much less convenient to just log into the bank website through browser.

> smooth offline maps & routing

… and this is the second one.

> Whatsapp

This may surprise you, but not everyone uses this piece-of-crap software. In Russia, for example, the only people who use it are peacocks who want to be fancy; everyone else use VK messages, that had all functionality of Whatsapp before it even existed. (Oh, and yes, Sailfish has both a built-in integration and a great native app for it).

> proverbial jungle
> with nothing but a loincloth

It’s not the people who don’t use all this crap who live in jungle; it’s you who are lost in a jungle of junk. You have convinced yourself that “the conveniences that modern mobile technology brings have become indispensable”, you are who have tied your own hands.

Cherry-picking a few examples from my list and explaining how *you* don’t need or like them is completely missing the point.

It’s not about those specific few examples, it’s about the fact that there are plenty of popular apps with millions and millions of users that cannot be ported to another OS without the operating company support.

You don’t use Skype? Good for you. In my line of work, plenty of remote meetings get done on Skype because I deal with business folks across many companies, not geeks. Skype is usually the easiest common denominator when setting up a video or international call. If you finally get a meeting with a potential new client and she wants to use Skype, the last thing you want to say is “Oh, can you please install such and such and open a new account, because I’m traveling and my phone can’t do Skype.”

Banking via website? The official app has several functions that are not available on the web. For example the app lets me take a picture of a cheque to deposit it in my account.

Online games? I didn’t list any specific names, because I’m not sure what the latest and greatest are because I don’t play any. No need to lecture me. But hundreds of millions of people do and enjoy it.

And even if an app has only ten users, if it’s critical to them, then those ten users will be lost for Sailfish without a native equivalent and without Android support.

What about all the other examples I gave and you conveniently overlooked? Have you ever been to China, by any chance? If so, have you met a single person who did *not* use WeChat / Weixin?

What about examples I didn’t even give? As I said “the list is endless”, I could come up with more examples until tomorrow morning. Airline apps to manage your boarding passes and frequent flyer mileage account. Yes, maybe *you* don’t fly a lot, but many people do.

Evernote – taking notes, accessing meeting logs etc and sharing with colleagues. I’m sure *you* didn’t upvote it, but others did: https://together.jolla.com/question/98677/evernote/ If your company standardizes on Evernote, you better find a way to run it or another phone.

The excellent Pleco dictionary. I’m sure you don’t use that either, it’s a niche app, but for me dealing with a lot of Chinese text, it is absolutely indispensable. There is nothing remotely like it on Sailfish and I’d rather buy another phone than live without Pleco.

Controlling drones and watching their live video feed, home automation, continuous glucose monitoring apps – I can go on and on and on…

Feel free to insist that all people who use ANY Android app unavailable on Sailfish “are lost in a jungle of junk” and have tied their own hands. Give up the dictionaries, the maps, the banks, airlines, medical devices, drones, social networks, car sharing, games and business software, mobile payments, cryptocurrencies, music and video streaming! Who needs Netflix and Spotify anyway? See the light of using only pure Sailfish!

Like it or not, that puts you in a tiny minority. The discussion started about offering pure Sailfish, without Android support. Actually even you said banking and offline routing brings you back to Android, so I’m not sure what exactly your argument even is.

My point is, Jolla is unable to replicate all these use cases themselves. And if they were to release Sailfish without Android, they would cater to a tiny niche of purists who would not nearly provide enough revenue to pay for salaries and keep the lights on at Jolla.

Uber is a very disrupting business. Who pays the bills when you are ill? Not Uber. Who pays your pension? Not Uber. If everyone should work like Uber wants us to do, the whole society would go bankrupt. Uber-like services are only suitable as temporary side jobs.

Waze is Google. Waze uses internet data. Why not using Here? Here we go is a fine satnav.
Concerning bank apps: I miss that too, but I always hoped that Sailfish would become so attractive that banks would make apps for Sailfish too. Unfortunately Jolla is not focusing on a wider public. It appears to focus on developers only for some obscure reason. Therefore it will not become well known and reliable enough for banks.

Great. Why not share it random like the refund. Now you have two projects starting in July. Is this beta group real users in the wild or just some groupies?

I can wait for this Xperia hack but the refund must really start in July. How is the progress so far with a few days left to kickoff. How many will get refund in July? 0,5,10,25,40,80,2000 or will the number also be random?

True, but the previous one was and not a single answer on follow up from the top dog. Commit and run! And since I starting to believe this Refund suggestion might be a cover up without no over sight committee.

WTF, you want this OS to take off in this day and all you’re offering is a paid DIY install on a device already shipped with a full OS by another party?

I was quite impressed with the initial Jolla phone released (which I still use daily), but not by the complete lack of follow-up, limited and frequently breaking Android app support, and complete lack of options for paid apps (to support devs).

You can donate to devs via flickr support in the store.
So no its not a complete lack of supporting dev.

Not having paid apps has its benefits aswell. You won’t find ad contaminated apps in the Jolla Store.
Though in general I think if there is demand from developers and companies to sell applications for SailfishOS this has to come one day.

Thank you for webcat. Since I have webcat I am able to download sounds in the media app. It never worked in the Jolla browser.Was very frustrating.
I don’t agree with the Flickr possibility, neither with Paypal. I have said a hundred times that Jolla should set up a decent paying system. Now we get half working Android apps and apps with ads.

That’s right!
You should take more care for the old customers.
I have been a first one, and than you left me alone with my hardware.
In case you have a jolla phone with an aged battery, the jolla care will say you should use the device with the original one, but there is no batteries available in stock, and no estimated delivery time for the next batch for them…You made the same mistake for JollaC as well…
That is why I really looked forward to this cooperation with Sony-Ericsson, however I was a bit sad when I red you planning to port your wonderful OS to a huge device (one of the Jolla pone’s best feature was it can be used one-handed)
When I backed you I truly believed in you project, so I did not regret the same money as a commercial smartphone, just without the common function. Than I was happy for the weekly updates for the OS, I saw you working hard, and you have clear goals to achieve.
But nowadays you just committing the same mistakes again and again.
Your audience will not significantly expand, just because you show your product under a popular companies flag…the target market will be the same group who helped launching your project. And you trying to make the expenses higher (spend $300 for a device, than wait for a bit more, and than spend some extra money but we have no idea how much…that’s crazy)
When you got the idea ask money for SFOS, nobody tough trough this?

I will try to keep alive my Jolla phone until you port the OS to any Xperia compact pone. Maybe until that you will not to cancel the support of the original device…and the whole Sony with Sailfish stuff will be matured a bit.
But now I think that is you last chance to get back my faith in you.

Yeah, it’s beyond me how anyone can want a smaller phone than the Xperia X. I remember the race towards smaller phones in the 90′s, but that was before the advent of “smartphones”. Since then they’ve become bigger again, because you know, for what purpose would you be putting a tiny screen on a smartphone? Those of you clamoring for compact phones, maybe you can still pick up a Willcom WX06A off of eBay…?

Once again: everyone has his own views. I respect yours, so please do not behave like all people whose opinion differs from yours are morons.

I, for one, think that a man speaking on a modern smartphone looks extremely silly, like he is holding a cutting board against his head. A phone which does not even fit in most of my pockets is a nonsensical product of marketing teams.

Oh, and it also takes absolutely no effort to make a phone bigger. The whole art of designing the phone lies in miniaturization, not the other way. Increasing the size and calling it “technical progress” is as ridiculous as removing features from Gnome and calling it progress.

I like a “tiny” screen (no more than 5″) to be able to put it in a pocket and because it’s enough to do everything I need.

I ask you the opposite question: for what purpose would you be putting a screen bigger than 4.5 or 5″ on a smartphone? Except for teenagers to watch movies in their bed, I can’t see a lot of advantages.

He is a crusading adversary of tablets, so naturally he needs something else with a big screen to read books/watch videos/comfortably serf the web/etc. Personally, I prefer to use a proper dedicated device for that (i.e. a tablet), but to each their own.

I just picked up the huge device. I compared it to my Jolla 1. It has exactly the same width, it’s 1 cm longer and it’s way thinner. It’s for sure the smallest SailfishOS device to date. It’s so damn small that I cannot hold it safely with one hand because it slips in my fingers.

One cm longer in a mobile phone makes a big difference sir, what did you think, a phone had to be a meter long to be called big? I am not a developer and don’t know many technical things, but my logic is a phone with a smaller screen size is not only easy to use, but is also more power efficient. Am I wrong in assuming this?

May I suggest to all the serious members of the community to post comments on *Diaspora https://joindiaspora.com/ instead of here, since Jolla posted the update there as well? The reason being that we have two very effective weapons against trolls there: the “report” and the “ignore” buttons.
I know it’s not very convenient for many, but personally I find it very annoying and time consuming when I go through the first part of comments before realizing it’s all crap and I should just skip it. I’m sure I also miss plenty of interesting comments when I skim through the trolling stuff.

James you can also make polls on Diaspora. That will get straight to the point of you seeking info about the refund vs the SF image. In fact, if I have to be completely honest, before reading your comments thanking people who said which option they prefer, I didn’t really understand you guys wanted us to give you an opinion here in the blog’s comments. I thought you were somehow trying to figure that out elsewhere, from private discussions, the cbeta group… elsewhere.

The problem with Diaspora* is that there are not so many people using it, but it definitely could be a source.

Although I think we clearly said in the post “We’d also be happy to hear what you others think of the idea! Please let us know in the comments below, or if you do not wish to comment publicly you can also email us to community(at)jolla(dot)com.”

And this is just to see roughly how many people would be interested in the offer. The real “poll” (or maybe some other way) will be out later on.

Request denied. I am a “serious member of the community” as you put it, and I can’t even view your link without registering an account. Why would I want to comment there instead of on Jolla’s official blog with my already existing Jolla account, under the relevant post? You don’t think Jolla has the ability to moderate this blog, should the need arise? I have read all the comments relating to this post, and although they of course vary in content quality, I have seen nothing that rises to troll level.

So if I understood this correctly, there won’t be any Sony devices with SailfishOS pre-loaded and you will instead be relying on more of a Bring-Your-Own-Device type solution where you pay to download an OS image and then have to flash it onto your device yourself?

Shouldn’t be too hard me to do, but I do have to say I’m somewhat disappointed if understood correctly that you’re not offering devices with SailfishOS pre-loaded. Also, the exact same criticism I leveled at the initial announcement (vague and confusing) still apply so you it doesn’t seem like you learned anything from it.

I’m not sure how this post was vague in any way since it clearly says “…so that we can start the delivery of the downloadable Sailfish OS to all of you waiting to run our operating system on this great device.”

That very clearly implies that we are going to make it available as a downloadable image. Which means we will do our best to make it as easy as possible for the common user to install it on their device. (This was also mentioned in the post!)

Yes, you talk about downloads, but you don’t specify if this is the only way to get SailfishOS on Xperia. You don’t mention if there’s pre-loaded devices, i.e what most people use, coming at some point down the road or if it truly is a BYOD-only type affair.

I know PR people don’t like talking to say no, but I’d say this is necessary here seeing how you were similarly vague about pre-loaded devices in the first announcement and couldn’t be more specific when asked about it.

I can say that our thought was to make everyone understand that there won’t be any pre-loaded device by telling them that there will be a downloadable image. Since that’s the only option mentioned here, it makes it pretty clear what we are going to offer.

Leaving out information about something does absolutely not make clear that it’s not going to happen. Specially when people are expecting that thing to happen as it’s happened in the past.

This is the first time you’re actually going to be selling SailfishOS as an officially supported download. In the past downloads have been community supported and the only way to get official support it to buy a pre-loaded device. Because of this people are expecting at least the option to buy a pre-loaded device.

@L_A_G Jolla also left out the information that the downloadable image will not be free of charge.

Both points (no devices sold directly by Jolla, Jolla will charge for the download of the OS) are among the most interesting that you can find on this page. (Along with the fact that they, again, missed their own deadline and have no clue when the product will be finished.)

It is absolutely obvious that they didn’t intend to keep this information secret, else James wouldn’t have shared it so frankly in his answers to our comments. But whoever is responsible for these blog posts and Jolla’s communication as a whole seems to believe that what’s obvious to Jolla’s management (because it was decided long ago) must also be obvious to customers and needn’t be mentioned any more.

Reading Jolla’s blog posts is like having the center of an image hidden and guessing from its outer parts what it might be.

It’s a long time since I bought myself a car and was expected to install the engine myself. An operating system for hobbyists. Possibly even the best operating system in the world but as someone who wants the OS to be transparent (it’s the apps I need) I’m afraid I’m out.
(Why go to all this hassle just to run android apps – can’t the Xperia do that in the first place?)

Well of course some of our users may not want to run Android applications on their devices but many would definitely want to. And since we have promised a full Sailfish OS experience, it means that it will have the power to run both Android and native Sailfish OS applications.

The installation process will be made very easy for the common user to perform. So you really have nothing to worry about there

Yes, this is a very good idea. It’s not even paying for something I won’t use that bothers me, it’s flashing something to my device that I won’t use. For me, aliendalvik is bloatware. And it’s sad to see that a big reason for the delay is on account of problems relating to it. Let the people who want to run Android apps (why not stay on Android then, one might ask) wait for all the problems relating to that to be sorted out, and let people who just want a clean Sailfish experience download and flash a (potentially less error-prone) image without the dalvik layer.

yep. Couldn’t agree more with you fvalpondi and michael.a. The os could’ve been available to the community without Alien dalvik. If I needed and wanted Android I definitely would’ve bought OnePlus Sumthin’ with smashing hardware instead of belated X.

I also agree – I have no real use for Android apps. I understand many users want them, but why not have a second beta without fully ported/tested dalvik? I’d love to switch over asap to my just bought X!

Really happy to hear that the project is progressing forward, but still a little bit dissapointed. I bought a XZ Premium this month with Android and abandon my Jolla device expecting Sailfish OS for this flagship phone. I understand model X is a development start but, please, start with XZ Premium and get massive and premium in a row. Thank you! Regards!

Thank you for commenting. When we begun this project, we announced it as Sailfish OS for Xperia X and have been saying ever since that we will finish this project first then will move to other Xperia phones. And as written on this post, that is still the plan. Let’s see what will be the next phone when we are done here!

That’s a beautiful one! A worthy candidate! I am not waiting for another crappy device. We are taking good care of our devices and want to use them over a long period. This would be a real temptation for us, as there is no fully supported Fairphone with Sailfish. Thanks for the link.

Seeing how the SailfishOS on Xperia thing seems to be a BYOD affair I stated looking around for where I could buy a Sony Xperia X here in Finland. To my surprise it seems the Xperia X has gone out of production and been replaced by the Xperia XZ since the initial announcement.

The two devices use different SoCs (Snapdragon 650 vs 820) with different CPU cores (ARM A53 and A72s Qualcomm Kryo’s) and GPU (Adreno 510 vs 530) along with a bunch of other differences including the USB port (standard microUSB vs Type-C).

Of course, Sailfish OS for Xperia X is not for any other Xperia but the X. And as far as I know and have read, (not commenting on behalf of Sony) the device will still be available to purchase till the end of this year. Don’t quote me on that because that’s what I have read on 3rd party websites.

I made that point about hardware differences specifically because you said you won’t (at least initially) be supporting other Sony hardware.

Looking around I can see that all the major Finnish cellphone carriers (Elisa, Sonera and DNA) along with general retailers like Gigantti and Cdon have stopped carrying the regular Xperia X. I can still find it at Verkkokauppa.com and Power, but that makes you wonder how long they’re going to continue carrying them.

Than you are betting on the wrong horse. It is not wise to give us only these cheap options. Devices are full of precious metals and therefore it is best to offer good, long lasting products. Don’t make the same mistake twice.

This is particularly good news – thanks Jolla.
My Jolla phone is getting a bit worn out, and I was worried I’d be forced to switch to Android or (shudder) iOS. I’d be well pleased with the opportunity to swap the remaining tablet refund for the Xperia download, as it allows me to stay with Sailfish. Personally I find Android a real grind to use.
All positive from this user!

James, thank you for the continued efforts of all the Jolla team. I have used Sailfish exclusively on the mobile side since the Jolla 1 came out. I’m typing this on a Jolla C. From your comments and that of the initial post I take it a lot of problems stem from implementing the alien dalvik runtime. There was a suggestion above that two images be made available – one with Android support for those who want, and one without for those who have no need for it and want a clean Sailfish OS experience. I wholeheartedly second this. What say you?

AFAIK, the Sailfish OS app ecosystem is limited to Android KitKat runtime. What is Jolla specifically doing to ensure that popular apps like WhatsApp are developed for the Sailfish OS platform? Now that Google is soon trotting out Android O, it would be great if Jolla and Google can work out a deal where the runtime would at least be at Android Lollipop (5.0) level. Please advise, James.

C-beta is a small group of people who are under confidentiality contracts with us since we share our work with them. They are normal community members just like you but they are not to be confused with people who got the Jolla C last year.

Xperia X is out of production. So start with an older phone. And then pay extra for SailfishOS, to run 80% Android apps? Why not offer the phones without Android, so the price of the phone with SailfishOS will be the same as the phone with Android.

Thank you for your feedback. Unfortunately that is not something that can be done as the phones sold by shops are pre-loaded with Android. And if we were to make a special deal to have the phone with no OS installed and let the user install it him/herself, we would save everyone the trouble and install Sailfish OS from the beginning!

As industry insiders in direct talks with Sony (there was a joint press release), you had no idea this was coming?

Now it’s August, there is still no public Sailfish release for Xperia and the Xperia X are slowly selling out (major stores like Media Market already stopped selling them, most offers I find are from Ebay and Amazon resellers). By the time a commercial release of Sailfish is finally available, people won’t be able to buy the only compatible phone anymore. You would have to hunt around for some leftover stock or buy a used phone on Ebay, just so you can spend more money to manually install a third-party OS that has no outstanding benefits over the stock OS that the phone already comes with. How many people are going to do that?

What does that mean for your business and the prospects of Jolla as a company?

As written on the post, if you are an active member of the community (doing ports, answering TJC comments, developing apps, etc.) you will get noticed by us and there will be a chance for you to be a c-beta member. We don’t have an opening at the moment for new members though.

Can you please release some infos related to the camera? A member on jollatogether mentioned that only 8MP will be available and we can’t use the full power of the camera of xperia x. Is this true and is there a way to use the proprietary camera drivers in sfos to have 23MP? Thanks in advance!

Nice to hear of the progress. Still I cannot resist to suggest to put less effort in Android support. More of your ‘resources’ could be allocated to Sailfish itself and AD causes less apps being ported.

As of now, we definitely would need Android support since many of our users use that feature for some applications that are not available for Sailfish OS. Because of those many users (admittedly I am one of them) it is very much needed… But thanks for your feedback

This is a bit off-topic, but introducing support for payments in Harbour might serve to make more devs inclined to develop Sailfish apps that might help ween the userbase off Android apps that are used simply because there are no native substitutes. On TJC it was said by official Jolla reps years ago that this was being looked into. You wouldn’t happen to have any news on this matter?

I have to say that I’m slightly disappointed. As an owner of a J1 (until I lost it), to have to buy outdated hardware which isn’t still in production and then separately purchase the software isn’t going to be an attractive option.

If there are lots of issues then worst case the phone stops being sold before 1.2.1 is ready to use outside of the community.

Having used iOS and currently using Android, I’m stuck in an unhappy place.

I’m using my J1 as my daily phone. Batteries have given me headaches and the UI is getting slow when it is collecting mail from my 6 mailboxes.

So I hope to be able to buy a new phone soon. Yes, I do need Android. The great promise of the Sony would be a higher Android version so I could run some extra apps that are not available for SailfishOS.

I built a couple of escape rooms with all new technology myself (Get out of here, Utrecht, NL) and had to overcome tech problems as well, which took far more time than expected. And cost more money as well. So I can sympathise with your struggle. I can only hope you succeed soon. All the best!

The price of the X and X Performance doesn’t differ
much. But the Performance is the stronger one.
I don’t talk about the initial support, but will the
Performance also be supported in the future, or will
Jolla stay on the X and the upcoming devices?
Does this Sailfish port run native or on top of
Android with libmer?

Could you also take a couple of guys with dual-sim Xperia X in Cbeta group, so they could test at the same time? AFAIK the difference is small (just another target of the tree to build), but it could make dual-sim X available early. Cause single-sim X is a downgrade for those with Jolla C/aqua fish.

Thats are really good news.I am happy to read about it. Will the Sony Xperia XCompact supported too? Will it be possible to choose which OS are booting at power up? I am missing my Jolla device, i hope i can use Sailfish soon.

I second the dual-boot question. I’m looking to buy a Sony Xperia X F5121 really soon after Jolla’s announcement, as the prices for the device are coming down. Looking forward to Sailfish OS on the Sony hardware!

Very nice guys, fingers crossed! I’m supporting the idea to give you some money for the system on top of the hardware. Just give me a chance to do it;-) I like the system very much and my jollas (have 2 of J1) definitely need replacement!

What a let down of gargantuan proportions . . . . . . . . First you wait 6 months for a new SFOS device to be announced to find it’s still not ready and when it will be it’s on another phone that’s already being discontinued and because you’d already got wind of this and decided instead to plunge for the XZ, that an image for that isn’t even going to be made available? WHY are we stuck in a perpetual cycle of OLD hardware? Why not sack the Z and go for the XZ? It’s getting really tiring now chasing Jolla, I’m slowly losing the will to be ar*ed with it, and I’m sure I’m not alone.

Where did I mention a physical device ? Correct, I didn’t,apology accepted, you’re welcome.

Now back to the point, the ‘new’ device they are pushing an image for is once again, old hardware before any ‘regular’ user gets to buy an old phone and flash it to it, hardly advancing is it when the manufacturer is going to discontinue the device ? At this rate you’ll be in a life raft, the ship will be sinking if they don’t pull their fingers out and get a CURRENT image out for a CURRENT model with more than a years life in it.

I participated in the crowd-funding tablet project by buying a tablet, case and some other accesory. It costed me like $400 but before I saw the email about the refund, the time for receiving it had passed… Is there some way this issue could be resolved? I mean, $400 is a lot of money to receive absolutely nothing… Any help regarding this loss is welcome. Thank you! Seth Mundall

Thank you guys for the Info!
I’m very happy that the situation is clear now, and we can buy Xperia X now.
And i must say I don’t understand the critics coming out in some comments here. Jolla is a small company, who is making an 3rd secure Ecosystem. Much bigger companies, like RIM and M$ have already failed trying to the same – 3rd Ecosystem.

Releasing an Image for the community is much better, cheaper, faster etc. than releasing an community device. But some people expect from Jolla the same amount of support like from Apple or Samsung.
As an active member of community i must say – that Jolla doing the things right, concentrating on Software Business. This is bad for us (community) because we don’t have much ready-made SailfishOS Devices, which we can buy SailfishOS equipped oob.
But buying an Xperia X Singel SIM and installing an Image afterwards is not a big task for an average Linux user. For all folks, which thing – its complicated – i can offer my community help.

What’s wrong exactly with pointing out that the hardware you’re on about buying is going to be OLD and DISCONTINUED ???? You’ll get 12 months warranty if you’re lucky, then what ? All this wait to be told they’re putting an image out for OLD hardware, what a f***ing letdown, if you’re not disappointed I cannot comprehend your excitement, seriously.

If you want actual Hardware as soon, as it hit the market – you need to take Apple or Android.
Sailfish Development takes time. And our SailfishOS is very young OS, which is running on very limited devices. When anything goes good, you can ask for actual Hardware in 5 years, but now – it is be like it is. I have SailfishOS running on the Fairphone 2. Its one of the most powerfull devices, where SailfishOS works quite good – but yes its alredy old Hardware…. We need to give Jolla and SailfishOS a bit more time to mature.

Hardware must not be always the most important thing. It’s not about the more powerful processor and the more RAM. It’s about how you use it. Apple is a good example. It never had the “best” hardware (compared to Samsung & co.). It merely had an OS adapted and optimized to their hardware.

I think @davekelly means, that when SailfishOS Image will be ready – Xperia X will be dicontinued – and it will be possible to buy it on ebay/amazon/refurbished with limited warranty.

I think warranty shouldn’t interest us:
To install another OS on Xperia Phone the Bootloader needs to be unlocked and this WILL VOID WARRANTY
I void all my warranties on the first day i buy something, so for me personally – its not a big deal

“To install another OS on Xperia Phone the Bootloader needs to be unlocked and this WILL VOID WARRANTY”
That statement is unlikely to attract “normal” users to the world of Sailfish. Personally I supported Jolla because I hoped for Nordic-design high-end hardware (not to be as we now know and that’s fine because I’m only one potential user) and wouldn’t know (or, indeed, care) what a Bootloader is..

I’m perfectly happy with the Xperia X hardware. If you’re one of those who consider everything not released last week old and deprecated, then I cannot comprehend YOU.

Jolla’s work on Xperia X started before Sony’s announcement that they would discontinue it. In any case it will be produced at least until the end of the year, and since on top of that current stock has not sold well (because of people such as yourself instead paying overprice for the latest shiny new hardware, no doubt), I don’t foresee any shortage of devices for those who want them.

There’s something I have never understood about sailfish OS. It is Linux at its core right? On the desktop it doesn’t matter which hardware you throw at it (e.g. Linux), it will probably work as expected.
Sailfish OS on the other hand is specifically designed for one particular device, while it uses Linux at its core. Being used to Linux on the desktop, I would expect Sailfish OS would work somewhat similar.
How come there isn’t just one Sailfish OS image that works for most phones (with similar hardware)?

Also, most Linux distributions that I know of are free of charge for the average user to download. I have to say I like these business models much better.
Don’t get me wrong, I do think Jolla should be able to make (a lot of) money for the effort they put in the DEVELOPMENT of this awesome OS, but paying for the DISTRIBUTION instead of the DEVELOPMENT of software isn’t the solution.
It lacks transparency and I’m wondering how Jolla will deal with “piracy”. Freedom of information should be a universal human right in my opinion and charging people money for the DISTRIBUTION of Sailfish OS conflicts with that believe.

I think I’m going to skip this device, since I’m only interested in the compact models. A mobile phone is a device that should be interacted with using one hand in my opinion.

Keep on being the best option in the mobile industry Jolla!
You guys are AWESOME!

Linux for PC can be installed on every PC, because all (most) Drivers are in kernel. SailfishOS rely on Android HAL. Because Chipset/Smartphone Developers void GPL and don’t release source code of their drivers – SailfishOS need to use Android Drivers (HAL). And they are always hardware-dependent.
So SailfishOS can’t be compared with normal Linux here. Unfortunately….

ARM hardware is a bit special, as you probably need a device tree for each model you want to support. It’s not as generic as X86. Plus of course you need the device drivers for specific hardware used in the phone, such as camera sensors, which might not be easily available exactly because they are so specific.

Good to hear this news. But it would be great to have pre-installed Sony devices. I can understand the idea to sell licences to download images for SFOS. At first we have to buy a Xperia X device with pre-installed Android in it, for using this Software on the phone. This is the first licence we have to pay. After this we could flash the device with SFOS, after paying another licence. You will get no new users with this thing. Why should a customer buy a Sony Xperia device with Android and than change to SFOS??

I thought that the Sony deal would have pre-installed devices in the shop!!

I will follow the way of SFOS. My wife has an Intex Aqua Fish. I am a Linux user. I love it and I will think of it to buy me a Sony Xperia device and flash it, when it will be have a fair price!

Please be *very* accurate about which exact Xperia model(s) will be compatible or not with SailfishOS port. My fear is that this device will be out of production when Jolla will release the final version of SailfishOS port for it, so I’m planning to buy it well before. Also, please explain why the compact 4.5 inch version is likely to be not be supported.

At the moment Jolla say, that only Xperia X Single SIM F5521 will be compatible. If other Xperia Models will be Sailfish compatible, they can say only AFTER Xperia X Port will be released.
So you can only buy Xperia X SingleSIM F5521 atm.

Great news. I hope Jolla will also release the majority of remaining proprietary SFOS stuff until then, because I decided for myself to happily throw money at Jolla — but only if their “truly open” OS can finally be called Free as in Freedom.

I know there are ongoing efforts and the investors are still the ones holding it back, please just notice that there are people emphasizing free software and willing to give effort and money for SFOS at the same time.

Reading the earlier comments here, Jolla seems to plan putting a price tag for this software so we can simply forget “Free”. Also access to the source code is currently restricted so maybe just forget “Open Source” as well.

The distribution model they’re currently planning seems more like what M$ did earlier with Windows: Buy the hardware from wherever, then separately buy the OS and install it yourself, without full access to the source code. Additionally, you will probably need to register an account at Jolla to enable the store and future updates on the phone.

What I’d like to suggest to Jolla: Make it free, and instead consider the marketing value of all those people installing it and showing it to their friends. Also push forward the opening of the components like you’ve promised already, to gather the interest of the open source community. They will most likely return the favor in both joining the development and donating to your projects, additional to marketing your open projects for free.

I think you know I understand that. But while there’s both restricted access to the sources and a price tag, this case is pretty clear: It’s not free as in freedom, and it’s not free as in free of charge. My suggestion starts with the price, as opening the software seems to be difficult for Jolla.

> My suggestion starts with the price, as opening the software seems to be difficult for Jolla.

I strongly disagree. Jolla desperately needs some real cash. The logical thing would be to do the other way: open the source for non-commercial use (in order to give the community an opportunity to work on bugs), and sell the image.

Not totally great, but good news.
Thanks for answering questions here!

Did you try and ask Sony for technical help (developers who could work on the camera, for example)?

Was there any information/experience gained along the way regarding the difficulty of supporting dual SIM models in the future? (Important feature for me, I would like to get a feeling if dual SIM support is somewhere on the horizon or totally unrealistic even for the more distant future).

Is there any legal problem if I buy 1000 Sony Xperia X, preload them with Sailfish and sell them throught the world? Will you give me a rebate on the OS licenses in this case?

Sorry if I was not clear here: The idea is to pay licenses for Sailfish to Jolla. That’s why I asked for a volume discount (rebate) if I buy a 1000 Sailfish licenses.

Basically I would have expected this from Jolla: Buy the HW, install the SW and sell as a product. The question was aimed at finding out if they would let OTHERS do what they don’t want to do. But of course with legal Sailfish licenses.

Obvious next choice for the porting will be the Xperia X Compact, as it is based on the same SOC and should be an easy port.

However, I would suggest aiming for a newer device.
Xperia XZ Compact, which is now only rumoured, and should be available in September, may be a great choice.
With the rumoured powerful Snapdragon 835 and 4 Gb of RAM, and 4,6″ screen with (judging at XA1 and other newer Sony phones) smaller bezels XZ Compact could be about 60-61 mm wide (and, say, 9mm thick, as they’ll need enough volume for a sizeable battery), and this will change everything!
Really, shaving ~7mm of width and 1mm of thickness from a phone with a screen size similar to Jolla JP-1301 will make a huge difference to the way one can hold it and use with only one hand (SFOS was tailored for one-handed usage, and I personally love it because of the UI).
And this (too many ifs here, but hey, this whole adventure is quite uncertain will be a newest possible device in the most unique form factor on the market (really, no one makes premium small phones anymore except “some kind of fruit company”).
Truly unlike.

I’d pay money to make it happen. Make a new crowdfunding campaign in September, and I’ll forward the 2nd half of my tablet refund towards it and add some more.

I have no interest in any compact device and would not even consider buying a device with less than a 5″ screen anymore, but I would jump in to crowdfund an image for the regular XZ model. And I wouldn’t crawl around the Jolla boards for years screaming about a refund if the project fell through, either.

The supposedly underpowered Jolla phone (at least its hardware specs) had enough horsepower to be my daily workhorse for quite a while making me sad when the display broke after a six meter free flight some 10 months ago.

Can’t wait to buy an Xperia X, but I do not want to use it a single day on its stock Android.

I don’t care if it’s not the top notch specced phone available, because every 3-6 months any phone gets obsoleted by new models. As long as SailfishOS works great with lower end devices, I’m sold.

I’m OK with paying to download SFOS, as long as this means contributing to making it more stable and mature.

Seconded. This should easy, as the Jolla C / Intex Aqua Fish are double-sim. I have already placed an order for the F5121, because I suspect any dual-sim implementation will be far off… But I want to see it happen.

Oh yeah, I’m not even turning my Android-infected Xperia on when it arrives. It will stay in a drawer until I flash the Sailfish image.

Frankly speaking, I am not too chuffed with the news. I understand it takes time to sort out the issues with the OS. However, it is rather shitty to keep Sailfish OS users in suspense for months and disappoint them with the beta release of a Sailfish OS-powered Sony Xperia X or whatever the bloody hell! Shame on you, Jolla/Sailfish OS! Hopefully, you remove your head from your derrières and get your act together! I wanted to purchase an unlocked/international, dual-sim card, black-coloured Xperia phone in hopes of having Sailfish OS on its. Of course, I ought to have known better because I live by the adage: don’t count your chicks until they hatch!

What!? paying the device with android first (means paying android), then pay again for SFOS!!!
Why should we pay for two OS if we use just one?
No problem for paying sfos, but it should be included on the phone price.
Means is delivered with the device, or having the guarantee from sony that if we download and install sfos, then the money is reversed to jolla. I just want to pay for only what i use.

1) I am ok with getting a SF OS license in exchange for a tablet refund.
2) Jolla communication is really poor, already mentioned above. There could have been a clear statement in this blog post that users need to buy a SF OS license on top of a regularly purchased Android device.
3) There is still no reward to develop NATIVE apps! A payment system is urgently needed!
4) Some screen shots / feature preview could motive users to wait. (or maybe not?)

Great to hear. Apparently my Jolla 1 wants to retire as hours after this blog post the phone stopped responding to touch. Thus it seems I’ll need to head to store to purchase Xperia X and trust Jolla will deliver the SFOS as soon as possible.
I would’ve preferred to switch straight within SFOS world but it seems I’ll need to move to Android for the meantime. Meh.

I do concur with other comments here that it does sound a bit annoying to first pay for phone with one OS and then later pay again for another OS.
As tablet backer I would be considering to waving refund in return of SFOS image, in case this option would become available.

First off, I’m glad to hear your work is progressing with Sailfish for Xperia! Great! And also I see no problem paying a license fee to take advantage of your hard work!

I too however am of the same opinion as previously mentioned several times in the thread that there should really be a clean Sailfish release for all of us who wants as little to do with Google, Android, Facebook etc as possible.

And if that version is already ready for release would only help your customers to pickup the hardware before its out of stock and spread a lot of good will in a community where everybody is sooo hungry for a new device.

As for future devices I suggest sticking to Sony and Nokia. I’d love to see Sailfish on the Nokia 6

To get a license for my BYOD in exchange of the second tranche of the refund sounds like an elegant way to resolve things with little overhead, which I appreciate. This approach boils down to a very expensive license, though.

Given that I will change devices a number of times in the forthcoming future (as there finally seems to be a chance to do so), I would really not want to pay for such a license over and over again after having waved the rest of the refund.

I would want to use the license key on an Xperia X first, then will switch to Xperia X Compact the moment it gets available and may as well change device at a later point in time as the Xperia X series is getting abandoned by Sony. Actually, if a Sony Xperia tablet should ever make it into the list of the supported devices, I would also want to make my dream of a Jolla table true and wouldn’t mind using that license key for that additional device as well! And if I had a license key that would allow me to run a limited number of devices concurrently, then I could use my then redundant Xperia X to lend it to friends so they have a chance to get a hang on the SFOS experience to find out if they want to buy one for themselves.

In conclusion I would suggest to offer a personal license that allows to be used on multiple devices concurrently by one person, rather than a license that may be bound to a particular device.

The latter makes perfect sense to be offered separately at a much lower rate; but as a contributor (by happily waving the remaining refund) I would like to gain the piece of mind to be able to experiment and flash devices to my liking without the licensing hell that other commercial software products usually impose.

1) On the mobile market, there are operating systems that are closed source, spy on user’s data, but are absolutely free (as in free beer) AND have established ecosystems, so people can just buy the phone and it works (Android and WP).

2) Also, there are operating systems that are open source AND absolutely free (as both in free beer and freedom), but require manual installation on top of a separately bought phone, don’t have established ecosystems, and lack basic features that make them barely usable as daily drivers (Replicant, Ubuntu, Firefox, Plasma Mobile etc.).

3) You are proposing to actually PAY MONEY for an operating system that is proprietary/closed source, doesn’t have established ecosystem, and lacks basic features that makes it barely usable as daily driver.

4) Several years ago neither of the “big” operating systems had true multitasking, which made Sailfish appealing to people who need this feature. However, recent versions of Android introduced true multitasking AND ability to work with several apps simultaneously in split-screen (something that Sailfish doesn’t allow), so multitasking is not unique to Sailfish anymore.

5) Theoretically it’s possible to write apps for Sailfish in pure C++, which would make them several times faster than similar Android apps (that are Java-based). However, Jolla EXPLICITLY resists this by banning the Widgets module from Harbor and encouraging developers to write in QML (which is JavaScript-based). As a result, the vast majority of Sailfish apps are not any faster than their Android counterparts.

6) Since Sailfish is closed source AND doesn’t support sandboxing (trusted execution) or even the most basic permission management (which makes talking about being “secure” or “caring about privacy” irrelevant as well), its ONLY remaining selling point is its swipe-based UI, which is very arguable (I, for one, consider Sailfish UX to be a downgrade compared to MeeGo Harmattan).

True: SFOS has a limted ecosystem.
BUT: with it’s Alien Dalvic it exploits the massive ecosystem of the Android world without allowing it to do all of its spying business as the Android layer as such is sandboxed in the overall system.

To my knowledge there is no other system around that would allow you (or me) to benefit from the comforts of an app-driven society (e.g. Car-sharing apps, messengers,…) without making your phone a constant tracking device.
THAT is what I am more than happy to pay money for!

4) and 5) are marginal aspects to me in comparison.

6) I full-heartedly agree with everything you state here – only disagreeing with the UI beint the ‘ONLY remaining selling point’.
As pointed out above THE selling point to me is all about the personal data on SFOS still belonging to me rather than to the many service providers.

But I completely agree that the security architecture needs to advance significantly sooner rather than later.
The first priority obviously still must be to finally get a device the system can actually run on – which is actually what this post is about.

“Spying for free” is a term coined by Eben Moglen from the Software Freedom Law Center to describe those ecosystems where you get offered all those fantastic services for free (as in beer), but if you look at them while you are sober they all have the one property in common: that they only work if you accept them spying on you for free.

With other words: If you don’t pay pay for it, you ain’t a customer – you are the product.

With Jolla things are different. Jolla isn’t interested in spying on us. This is most appreciated by me. Instead we, the community, provide feedback for free, but on our own terms. That’s what communities are about.

Evgeny Morozov, Shushana Zuboff, Bruce Schneider, Cory Doctorov, Aral Balkan and others. They are the people who explain again and again how the surveillance system works. I recommend everyone to watch this documentary on Vimeo: ‘A good American’.
British newspaper The Guardian regularly has revealing and informative articles on spyware. Sharelab has made a map of the whole network of Facebook. The BBC has a series of Secrets of Silicon Valley. Really worth seeing!

QML offers support for Javascript and C++. The widgets module doesn’t have anything to do with this.

Also, the main selling point certainly isn’t the UI. (Quite on the contrary… you learn to navigate around its shortcomings.) The main selling point is that it’s exactly the same OS as any other GNU/Linux distribution, made of the same building blocks. That makes it easy to work with without learning anything new.

You are right, but this is an “advantage”, not a “selling point”. I’m yet to see one official advertisement that said “Sailfish is exactly what you were waiting for: a proper mobile Linux distro with root and SSH out of the box!”. Instead of that, every time Sailfish is advertized, I see talks about “sleek and sexy UI”.

And this is probably understandable, considering that Sailfish is targeted on general market (which is a pity, because IMHO Jolla should have targeted the same niche market as Maemo did).

@SchröpfeMich: You’re right, the term “selling point” is generally somewhat inappropriate… The selling point is depends more on the customer than on the product. For me, the GNU/Linux DNA was the *only* reason why I bought a Jolla phone (and a Maemo device before). I couldn’t care less about UI design or about whatever Jolla thinks is their selling point.

Having a Firefox video tab running on a home screen cover, while few other Sailfish app covers showing other moving content, used to be a feature in Sailfish OS. This kind of “true” multitasking was changed to snapshots for the homescreen when multiple Android app covers were introduced on SFOS 1.0.8.

I still have one of my Jolla phones running on 1.0.7, on which I can play one Android browser video and few Sailfish browser videos at the same time on the home screen. As many as the RAM allows, actually.

Hello, having 2 lines so 2 sim cards I had hoped that the model of the Sony Xperia X is the one with dual sim 64 go. It is a pity that it is only the simple 32 go sim. I will continue with my Intex Aquafish which it lacks to memory but has two slot sim.

Firstly, where do/can I buy a Sony Xperia Z single sim phone? Everywhere I’ve looked so far says out of stock.

Secondly to all the complainers, developing a product takes time, there’s always hidden road blocks. While it looks simple on the outside, from the inside it is very different. Getting a stable and functional OS that every day users will be happy with onto new architecture (Arm) and new hardware is fraught with many issues. Those that complain have obviously never been involved in developing anything that requires a lot of problem solving, modifications to the original plan and testing etc.

Yes I figured that out eventually. Looks like I can get the F5121 locally.:)

The F8131 was on several sites which initially looked like it was the one to buy. As you say it’s the “Performance” version and it looks very similar to the XZ.

For those still looking for an Xperia X and find the one listed but are unsure if it’s the correct one, it appears the spec you need to look for is the processor. It needs to be 1.8 GHz / 1.4 GHz Qualcomm MSM8956 Hexa Core 64-bit.

Under the circumstances that the product (software) is not finished I will not by any device before the software is finished and the specific name of the device is clear and officially announced,
Hopefully I can get then still one of these X models… For Sony it might be a good deal to get rid of old products in store. For the “new” sailfishOS-user it is always a walking behind the state of the art.
Jolla, please prepare after the X-model, the XZ-model or something similar.
By the way, it is incredible, that jolla offers a product to download to do a self-installation. What kind of service is this? I think this is a big mistake again, not to be customer orientated. I know that a pre-installation costs money, but it costs even more customers not to do/offer it!
I really cannot understand this behavior of a firm in our time. The only reason for this behavior is to save money. Keep the costs low and probably running behind all new developments never reaching the top…until the firm dies (running until the end).
Really: Steve Jobs would have fired everyone who’s not customer orientated. The value of the sailfishOS never unfolds completely by running always behind the bus (top products/models) and never catch it. Complaining that the staff is not sufficient in numbers is ok. in jollas situation but this subject should be solved with the investors to lift up the speed of product development.
Just one example: If sailfish for Sony X would be ready in September/October 2017 and the development for the Sony XZ device would start it takes approx. 3 additional months or more. Does anyone still need this then when the next further developed device is already prepared to be launched?

@Theodosius Concerning the self installation… The whole Xperia project was announced as a successor to the Jolla C. As a developer device, not as a new Jolla device for the end user or for the masses. From that point of view it’s not that much of an issue.

@ossi1967 Right. It was announced as a community device. That would mean all other end consumers, except the ones living in China/India and Russia, are already out since the tablet disaster. Am I right with my conclusion?
Have to think over if this boat is still the right one to sail on…

I am still not giving up hope that certain device producers with particularly suiting customer bases would want to license SFOS to offer that special flavour in their niche. Imagine a SFOS version of the FairPhone2 or the Puzzle Phone (once it becomes available). That would be nice…

My husband and I are still using our Jolla 1. We came over all the frustrations, because we also use an ipad. But, when we are not at home, the functioning of Jolla 1 is absolutely insufficient and crappy. We really need another phone with Sailfish, a good one. Jolla should not forget that if the Sailfish phone works well, users are ambassadors. There are many more people interested in a third OS than there are Jolla users at the moment.

I believe there is a misconception happening when you say: “I think this is a big mistake again, not to be customer orientated.”

Since Jolla decided to not do hardware anymore and to concenntrate on the licensing of their SFOS, the end user is no longer the customer. Customers are licensees like Intex, that buy bulk licenses to deliver THEIR devices with THEIR version of a branded SFOS.

So with the offering at hand, Jolla is actually not addressing customers, but community members, developers and enthusiasts. Hence the offering having been announced as the successor program to the limited Jolla C community device program.

With this in mind, I think it is the smartest move possible, to offer an image for self-flashing to address this technically savvy community, satisfying the urgent demand without getting into the way of what could be the customer base of actual mass-licensees.

If you are not confident enough to flash your own device or don’t know anyone who could help with that, then this offering and frankly possibly the product as it stands at the moment might just not be for you.

BTW: I wouldn’t mind helping you with the flashing process if you are really keen to go for SFOS and only the system setup is the hindrance. No worries. It actually is pretty easy.

@hubat Yes, I am an enduser and thanks for offering your help! IMHO: I don´t know if this small boat is still the right choice to go on with as the jolla might sail to far away from track that leads to customers in Europe. It looks like the head of jolla and investors go into a direction that is completly away from my expections to become the second number in mobile OS.

I share your sentiment and worries. To their credit we have to see that they tried to address the end users directly with two full-stacked products and couldn’t get anywhere near a sustainable business model that way.

I accept their concept of generating funds with branded systems, even if that means side-tracking the communities expectations to some degree.

There is simply no alternative to SFOS if you don’t want to feed your private data to information mongering giants.

I agree. I have a Jolla 1 as my only phone and I’m a non-techie. I’m interested in jolla because they don’t sell your private data. I’ve been thinking about buying a tablet and I thought I would wait for the Sony-Sailfish, but now that I know I’m going to have to port it, I’m not so sure anymore…

I’ve been feeling for a long time Jolla doesn’t do proper marketing. Hubat writes that they tried to serve end-users with 2 products and it didn’t work out. Well, for good marketing, you need 1) a good product, 2) knowing what makes you different from your competitors, and 3) wide-scale publicity. A good product they had as far as I’m concerned. My phone does what it needs to do. What makes them different from competitors: that’s where it goes wrong. The multitasking, ok, that was new. The swiping? That’s not a reason to buy a phone. What about: hey, you know NSA hacks Apple and Google? Not here! No reason to feel like you have to undergo that! Why is that not a selling point? Another one: no bloatware. You decide which apps you want on your phone. People are sick of ads, spying, etc but accept it because they don’t have the technical knowledge (and the courage) to port custom ROMs, plus the warrant is void which sucks, especially when you’re afraid you might brick it.

And then point 3, publicity: none of my friends has even heard of Jolla. I always have to explain where it comes from and why I have one. You can’t expect people to buy your product if they don’t know it exists.

I see in that, and in the way the Sony project is going, that the people behind jolla are only tech people and not really business people. They speak ‘tech’ to other people who understand ‘tech’ who then form a community that is supposed to be the customer base.

They need a non-tech marketing manager. He/she would tell them that porting Sailfish will only appeal to existing Sailfish users with tech experience and maybe users of other custom ROMs like Replicant or Paranoid Android who want to test something new (but might not want to pay for it). And that while there is no alternative out of the box that keeps your privacy safe, like Hubat said. This is a hugely missed opportunity for Jolla if they don’t offer this.

But I like Sailfish, not being a developer, being an older lady. I bought my Jolla three years ago, because I wanted an alternative to Google and Apple.
I don’t want to be spyed upon and I think monopolies are never beneficial. A European product would be nice. What future does Sailfish have if it is only a tool to play with for developers? What’s the purpose of that? Do the investors in Jolla agree with that? It’s not a Kindergarten!

On Jolla related sites, everyone says that F5121 ist the right model. When I try to shop online, there’s no F5121 to be seen. The model that most likely is the right one is listed as 1302-9401 in most shops. There’s no F-number at all.

Thanks for the information @hubat. In France it seems there is not so many of these models available. I can’t find this model at a reasonable price in France, most of the Xperia X models i’m able to find, is the double-sim ones. Where you bought your Xperia X ? I saw there are some sold in Germany or Sweden.

Let Sony see good sales on the soon-to-be-discontinued Xperia X “because SailfishOS”…

…then maybe Sony will offer some future XZ model preloaded with SFOS.

Anyway (personal speculation follows):

- it will take weeks for the SFOS guys to add in fixes
- no news in August and early September (no need to rush during holidays)
- I guess we will see downloadable SFOS images ready not before October 2017
- it will take a few extra months to refine things and latest fixes
- in the meantime Xperia X gets officially discontinued.

No way Sony will bother about it.

We can only hope that in Q1/2018 Sony allocates resources to sell some SFOS-preloaded new XZ phone (“preloaded” means both technical and commercial issues are 100% solved). If they actually rush it, we may see it announced in Q3/2018 and in stores (at least online ones) by 2018 Xmas sales, more realistically Q1/2019.

tl;dr: “preloaded” only means that you don’t have to install it manually. If you want a “preloaded” phone, just wait two years.

+1 for receiving a download bonus instead of 2nd part of the tablet refund! Cool. I was actually torn between accepting the refund and donating it to Jolla, and this solution sounds good, getting my fair bit, yet being supportive to Jolla.
One question though: as my aquafish is still fairly new and i am not plananning to change it that soon, would it be possible to get a generic ‘one image download credit’, in order to use it whenever i need to change my phone and for whatever device jolla will be supporting? Or it would be only for now and for Xperia X? (I have my finger crossed for the xperia x compact, just to say).

I’m happy there’s progress, both for myself – my Jolla 1 has a dead zone in the middle of the touch screen and there’s no replacement available – and of course for the broader perspective of an opener alternative to iOS and Android. But it also bothers me that we are mostly kept out of the loop. I understand that the money for survival is in licensing with big businesses and not in doing these “one-off” low number devices, but a lot of us are Linux users and developers who do put hope and trust into Jolla and might be helpful as part of a larger – I hate the word community, let’s call it an ecosystem or even open-source movement. If you keep people on the outside of the project, it feels like a game of maybe we do, maybe we don’t; maybe sooner, maybe later, maybe never; maybe this device, or another. It makes it very hard to rely on or even contribute to Jolla and Sailfish. It makes developers and users feel they are trying to invest in a platform that might not want them. I think that’s what a lot of the confusion and anger in this thread is about.

That’s exactly that ! I even tried to buy a Jolla C (twice!) and didn’t manager (twice!) since the payment by card was not working. We are 5 Jolla users in my family, and I didn’t even got some help. I was not asking for technical support… not asking for commercial information… I just wanted them to TAKE MY MONEY !! And I just felt like an annoying person. It would have been the same if they had said : “Hey… You want to buy a Jolla C, man ? What do you think ? You’re not the only one… Get out of my way, you jerk!”

Just one question. Aren’t you thinking to switch the phone to another model as Sony announced they Xperia X models are going to be discontinued? Unfourtunately the annoucement was made between Jolla’s Xperia project and this Jolla’s announcement deadline.

its easy to spot the fanboys who are overly buoyed by the the recent news and struggling to see why the rest of us are left somewhat deflated…..let me see if I can fill in some gaps

most users are still using the original Jolla phone and require new handset or battery

there are like 19 people in the whole world with a Jolla C (why Jolla didnt have a bigger number at release is simply baffling!)

Jolla choosing a handset that is officially about to be discontinued (this was confirmed today by Sony Centre near me) isnt exactly a good sign either

was that an intentional choice by Jolla? Was that the only way they managed to get on board with Sony?

after the complete debacle of the tablet you would have thought that Jolla would have tried to hit a “home run” with any new product release, instead you get the impression of a company trying hard to make it look like there’s a lot going on (for example take a look at the official Jolla web page and you get treated to a page showing Sailfish on 9 devices, one of these being the failed tablet!!)so look desperate to string the community along

“Hey friend/colleague with android/iOS, fancy trying something different? ….Oh, you do? Well its on a discontinued device with no warranty and you will have to install the software yourself! ….Hey, where are you going? ….Come back dude! ..Why are you running?? ……I’ve not even mentioned that the 23mp camera will be reduced to working at 8mp yet!…..Come back! Come back!!”

Even I was disappointed with Jolla not announcing a device, the reasoning that I gave to myself was that Jolla is answerable to the investors who pump the money and Jolla had moved out of hardware space. It has not got a good history there with tablet disaster, it is we the consumers who will get a choice if Jolla makes it, otherwise we have to fall back on the big two. Let us wish Jolla a bright future by supporting them in their time of challenge.

I, too, feel the frustration and disappointment you describe. That’s why I have abstained to comment here for the first 24 hrs after the post as I felt I would have anything to add but expressing my anger and disbelieve. But after having had some time to consider their rationale, I find a number of agreeable aspects (despite the fact that misleading communication is a constant nuisance, as always).

- That the production of a phone model after two years gets discontinued in favour of the then more current specs is the most normal thing and nothing to worry about.

- The Xperia X has been the flagship device in the Sony Open Platform Program at the time starting the project; so there really hasn’t been room to choose anything better/newer at that point in time, realistically.

- The Xperia X with its specs is the most powerful device SFOS has ever been available on. It will be a very smooth user experience, also because SFOS is so much more efficient then, let’s say, android.

- On the TJC there have always been many requests to support certain older devices for them being still rock solid devices, available at very small price point. The Xperia X as a brand new device costs half of the Xperia ZX and there are a lot of young but used devices slashing the costs even further. As mentioned above, also older devices perform beautifully with a slick system like SFOS. See https://together.jolla.com/question/128326/community-port-requests/ to recognise that the most voted for device is the Motorola Moto G 1st edition (2013).

- The Xperia X port is so difficult because it requires the transition to a 64 bit architecture. Once that has been achieved, it will be easy to add support for further devices. I hope for the Xperia X Compact first and then the Xperia ZX and after that one of the Sony tablets.

So after my Jolla1 has died a long while ago, and I could get a hand on a Jolla C, no matter how hard i tried,, now living with a crappy intex phone -> I see a proper pathway into a brighter future and would like to thank the good folk at Jolla for their efforts.

Wow, thank you for this comment. I don’t particularly agree with the misleading communication part as we have now added a rather clear FAQ and our post itself is telling the story as is (those areas that are being called vague are not 100% clear for us yet either).

But the rest of this comment makes all the sense in the world and I would like to thank you for it. I wish more people were reading this and thinking like you.

I agree 100% with the decision made month ago using the Xperia X to port SFOS first.
- unlock is supported by the vendor
- open device program
- reasonable HW

I like my still working Jolla1 which is more than 3 years old. It has sometimes the known battery contact problem and the OS is not perfect.

I do not need a still work in progress SFOS on a high end device. A midrange device is good enough. I prefer to have SFOS support for years. After a short time your device is old but your OS gets updates for a very long time

I hope that Jolla will communicate early if they plan to stop the SFOS support for the older (not 64 bit) devices in some years in the future.

A rather clear FAQ? In the answers given in the comments, it is CLEAR and IMPLICIT (new catchwords, apparently), that the device will be F5121.
Now, in the “rather clear FAQ” it is clearly stated that this is not sure.
WTF???? Do the developers not know for which device/HW they are developing?

It definitely says “F5121 single SIM version is the model we are developing on…” but we always take precaution, therefore we are asking everyone to wait until the actual official announcement. This post is not announcing a product, but it is more an update on the situation of the project.

James, I understand the precaution. However, if you are developing for device X, it is pretty clear that that will be the device for which the results will be available.
If I can help in beta testing I will be more than happy. Even though I am not a developer myself, I have been working since 2010 in system testing of industrial wireless devices (802.11/GPRS/3G/LTE). Therefore I have a lot of experience testing wireless communication devices

Mate, your reply is so good. Felt frustrated on this article too. Got very exited on february news about Sony+SFOS. And this update like “we are still working on, not much to report, soon some folks will have to test what we achieved”. So cloudy, like why not say something like that back in february? I’m not developer/community member,”Common user” you may say. I just bought Nokia N9 back in 2012 (it just felt naturally, always was with Nokia). But unfortunately, it was “one way ticket”. And was hoping like “End of Q2, they announce plans, gotta go to shop and shut up and take my money Sony!”. Aiming 4 X Compact,personally – my N9 is IDEAL in size terms like this, I don’t believe in that “Note, plus, max, ect.” sizes. And still nothing. Also, don’t understand all that wining about android apps. When my N9′s battery grew old and tired of launching apps, just bought cheap Android device, and it works fine for all apps-work. Come on, Android is old enough to deal with it. But still, despite of having Android-phone, I still use N9(honestly it’s a pain to use it “call-only”), because I believe that MeeGo/SFOS is a way better stuff that IOS/Android. So now waiting again, hope for X Compact. Hubat, your reasonable words is like medicine for the pain, ty))))

P.S. I was thinking to buy our “SFOS Rus” phone before Sony news, now it’s available(Inoi R7). Doesn’t have Android-apps, and it’s unknown if it would. But Sony is more reasonable purchase, because Inoi is positioned like corporate/government device, yet still available for retail users, in a price approximately 177 Euros(1/2 of X Compact), poor specs, skeptics say “Chinese(who said “Russian”?)-phone, made of shit and sticks”(kinda pun).

Learn from Fairphone. They are on the front with ethical production. Qwant, the new French search engine, is now coöperating with Fairphone. Why can Jolla Sailfish not coöperate too? What sense does it make to stay marginal? If you have a mission, then go for it.

It tells me a small company is trying to spend some resources to keep some sort of community around, even though the money might come from corporate licensing. The Xperia X was probably the most likely device when Jolla made plans and talked with Sony. Of course, the market for those devices moves pretty quickly because the device makers want to keep selling the latest and greatest and people don’t want last year’s phone. I wouldn’t be too quick to judge the few poor souls at Jolla whose job it is to port the system and who really would want Sailfish running perfectly on some recent devices. It must be pretty frustrating for them, too.

Sailfish OS for Xperia X will cost licensing fees? Are we talking about an symbolic price? Why should somebody switch from the free open source Android distribution, to an also open source based OS you have to pay money for? Doesn’t Sailfish OS need some users to create a living environment? If its really like that, you just lost a future sailfish os user. Wasn’t Meego free and open source? Why should somebody buy a 280 € phone with a free os on it, to replace it with an os, he has to pay licensing fees for. If its like that, i pretend you, sailfish os is dead before its even out for everyboday. So i have to search for other alternatives to android/ios. I am really disappointed from Jolla

The EU is working on a fine for Google, because Android still is kidnapped by Google.
Indeed, if Jolla comes with a new offer, it should be a good one.The Jolla 1 is very slow now, the camera is not good and the speaker is horrible, so please, come with a good replacement. Jolla Sailfish should not be a playground for developers anymore but a serious business.

You’re going in totally wrong direction. Instead of opening sources and increasing the community you’re killing what is left by offering this crappy solution to lose the the warranty, installing the os for money, spending a lot of time on Android porting, etc.
You are doing all the mistakes made buy Microsoft and Wine all together.

I wouldn’t judge Jolla so hard: Jolla is a Software company. They are creating an OS, which is mor open than the most other mobile OSes. When they would open source anything, how they should earn money?
And unlocking bootloader is not a big deal… To have an stock AOSP ROM for Xperia or any other Android Phone you need also to unlock bootloader. So where is the problem?
I think anything is good, when we get our SailfishOS an a good and fast HW.

There are numerous examples of commercially successful OSS projects (see e.g. Qt). All Jolla has to do is to publish the source under double license: free for non-commercial use, and paid for commercial use. It has been proposed ever since 2013, and the answer always was “we are looking into it, stay tuned!”.

Hi, thanks for the update.
I’am not part of the Cbeta testing group but need a new device soon!
I was not able to get an Jolla C and still using Jolla 1 as a daily device. The charging port nearly broken.
Is there any way to get the Image faster? There are only two andriod apps that I need:
- Telegram (since SailorGram is not stable any more)
- Here Maps
I would love to test an contribute feedback.

I have discussed with many people. They told that they won’t buy any kind of phones if these aren’t sold in any kind of official shops. So they could see and touch these phones before buying. So Jolla bring your phones to the operators’ shops like Telia etc. Otherwise you can’t dream of selling your SFOS phones high quantities.

This program is not about selling high quantities. It has been introduced as the successor program to the Jolla C community device program. The Jolla C program has only been a couple of thousand devices, leaving the vast majority of community members without any replacement device for their aged Jolla1 devices.

This program gives an unlimited number of technical savvy community members a chance to proceed running SFOS in some way; and over time will even offer choices between different devices.

This is not about satisfying the mass market. If someone would want to offer SFOS to a mass market, then that entity would need to become a licensee for SFOS to do so. Telia could decide to go that path. I am sure Jolla would be open to such interest.
I personally hope that fairPhone or Circular Devices/PuzzlePhone would decide at some point in time to do so…

Yes, I backed Puzzlephone. They have trouble to get funds, so we did not here from them for a long time. Yet, Puzzlephone and Fairphone are good candidates .
Jolla C was for the community. And what came out of it? HAS SAILFISH IMPROVED SINCE JOLLA C ? No, it hasn’t. The Jolla C is also a waste. Jolla should have a good business plan and coöperate with European companies.

You wrote your first comment here on July 1, 2017 at 4:28 am to which I replied on July 1, 2017 at 12:52 pm (times based on my time zone) to address your concerns. Others have replied to your post as well and I believe that you wouldn’t need to repeat yourself all the time if you would simply recognise that people are trying to talk to you.

This is a misconception about the Sony Open Devices Program. In this program Sony offers the drivers for those designated devices as binary blobs to any project that wants to port their system to these Sony devices. The only project that attempted to do that so far was the ASOP project. Jolla is now about to offer their SFOS as a commercial product to be used with some of those devices.

All that Sony does in all generosity, is to provide the necessary ingredients (drivers) to do so.

Couldn’t help but buy a device this week-end… So I thought, this is a good opportunity to play with Android, maybe I’ll like it… maybe Sailfish is not that good after all… But now, I know why I choosed an (almost) open OS for my mobile phone in the first ! Anything I try to do on the Xperia with Android asks my consent to collect my data, with a long unreadable text about privacy policies, etc… When I decline, no service. This really feels like it’s not my device… Now, I’ll wait with much hope for a Sailfish image to make this piece of hardware usable. Thanks Jolla for your work. Never forget your ideals, and keep the good work.

That’s my thoughts exactly. I tried to compile ASOP for the time being, but the build script unfortunately breaks on my machine. I really can’t wait for SFOS becoming available. If I could only push it somehow, I would.

Yes, this is why we bought a Jolla three years ago. And we have an ipad for some important apps like banking, that are not available for Sailfish. But an ordinary Android? No way. We decided to boycot Google as much as we can.
Jolla/Sailfish has to go on and they should become a more serious business so it can compete with others on privacy, elegance and simplicity. Apple has wonderful products, but that company is arrogant and focusses too much on luxury. They have so many features now, nobody uses them all, but everybody pays for them. Jolla people, you must go on and improve your OS, create a decent paying system, get involved with device makers.

I just “read” (looked at more accurately!) the link to Sony developer page above. Can I safely assume that downloading Sailfish is unlikely to simply require popping a cable into a lightning port on my mac and clicking a “install Sailfish” button?

I think hubat made good points on his post on July 1, 2017 at 12:52 pm.

To extend this a little further: Jolla is (and maybe cannot, due to lack of resources) not a fast paced developer – compared to larger companies in this market. Due to being rather independent from the development on the Android platform, being fast paced is not really neccessary. Instead we receive continuous update and despite old hardware the system works quite smooth for standard users. Or in other words: We have a sustainable device in terms of longviety.
However, there is one critical issue with pace, that might have been pure misfortune: If we don’t see market release in the next months (say Sept, which leaves only 1.5 months for the closed beta. Or should we call it alpha?), there will be only a couple of months availability of the X until sold out and then we have another legacy device. That might be enough time to provide the Jolla1/C users with a new phone. But not to attract a larger userbase.
As some commenters already said: The only use of Xperia X is (hopefully) to keep the existing userbase alive. Not a good perspective. I don’t even want to speculate how long porting to other Xperias will take them. This market doesn’t forgive mediocre progression. Sadly, as I really enjoy my Jolla1.

We have indeed supported our first ever phone for years and will continue doing so, and you are indeed right about us not having enough resources to have the same pace as, say, Google, to produce our OS. But about the Xperia X, we will hopefully plan the official announcement somehow that it is not so close to the final countdown for the phone. It was an unfortunate and unexpected event when the phone was suddenly out of production due to Sony’s change of strategy, but let’s remember, Sony has this great strategy of “one kernel rules them all” which means that when we make Xperia X work properly, making other Sony Xperia phones work with Sailfish OS is going to be the easiest thing in the world!

Jolla, I implore you to pull your head out of your ass and sort out your issues. You kept your followers in suspense for months and more-or-less disappointed us. I want Sailfish to be successful, but you have been shooting yourself in the foot. Does anyone agree with me or what?

We may have made some mistakes in the past, but since last year, it all has been progress for Sailfish OS. The deal with Open Mobile Platform and making Sailfish RUS happen (there now is a huge community of Sailfish OS fans in Russia), the deal in China which is progressing better than ever (more on that later), and many other opportunities and deals including the Sony Xperia project has made us busier than ever. There was a learning curve into this business and we found it. I personally don’t think we’re shooting ourselves in the foot, rather, we are pulling the bullet out! Sailfish OS is aimed to be profitable by the end of this year and by the look of it, we are going to make it happen!

The official Jolla club in VK has 6849 members, the Sailfish club – 1368 members. It’s safe to assume that these numbers represent about 95-99% of the actual corresponding communities in Russia (especially considering that a lot of members don’t even have a Sailfish device and subscribed out of curiosity). Not sure if I would’ve called this “a huge community”.

My understanding is that the vast majority of Sailfish fans are Europeans. Europeans are the community core, and it’s Europe that Sailfish should be aimed to.

Sailfish on our old Jolla’s has not changed by the moves that you describe above. Russian? So what? Do the Russians give us the mirroring that was promised? A paying system? A better device? Better apps? How many Russian, Indian people, Brazilians are using Sailfish now? Does that improve the OS?

Actually, the Russians are a great help in Sailfish Os development. Apart from the community based in Russia, doing amazing work for us, our partner OMP is also a big help when it comes to Sailfish OS development. Of course I can’t go into details of how many people are using Sailfish in which country, but it is enough to propel Sailfish OS forward.
Mirroring has never been deleted from our plans, but there has been other priorities that has held it back. Same story goes for the Jolla store’s payment system.

In a perfect world it would be much easier to get people to understand the difference between a software company and a hardware company. They would then be grateful that Jolla is trying to look after their enthusiastic supporters even though their business is actually phone manufacturers.

My remaining refund is $150 US which as the very helpful and knowledgeable @hubat pointed out would be a very expensive OS download. Still, I would happily offer all of it in exchange for a perpetual license for future devices and the right to keep the OS on my older phones for backups as newer supported devices come along. The proviso is that I have something usable in Canada with freedom Mobile.

I long for a phone that is not spying on me and tracking all of my movements. I am certain this is an enormous untapped market and as time goes by the demand will only grow as consumers realize what they are carrying around.

I should point out that all of your $150 should not be spent on the OS. We will do our best to be fair and only charge the price of the OS even if one is willing to deduct it from their remaining refund. That is only if we get to implement this idea.

Wouldn’t it be better to focus directly on SONY Xperia XZ instead to waste time on an outdated device? (the justification of jolla “we develop first for SONY Xperia X and go on later to the next devices” seems good on the first sight but it includes lost of time and resources). In one year the XZ will be outdate too, but better equipped. If jolla decides to offer just a 8MP camera function from a 23MP camera, does this make sense? Jolla should provide all functions and hardware possibilities properly. One strategy could be to deliver a first software version that can drive the hardware on a limited level and eliminate the limits later on through updates. Just to ensure we will see at some point a new hardware with sailfish on this year. However, a reduced camera function is not acceptable on the long run. This would be just a disappointment.

The “discontinued” device has a list price of EUR 650, so you get a nice discount for it being old. Moreover, it’s really a fine device: top camera, very good CPU (with less power consumption than the 8xx), great display, more than enough memory. It’s a good deal overall.

At the first sight I would do apply the same strategy to develop the new product and start with a less difficult one, but recognizing the time to come up with it and discovering that the developed device is already outdated I would reconsider that.

You HAVE no point. The hardware is what it is, discontinued or not. It’s the best hardware Sailfish has ever officially been on, and whether it’s this year’s model or the last is irrelevant for everyone except this subset of people that you seem to belong to, who run like starry-eyed fools after the newest, shiniest thing du jour.

Xperia X was an excellent choice as a starting point for this project. Jolla is not responsible for whatever marketing decisions Sony has taken after said project was already underway. Claiming self-sabotage is ludicrous. And on that point, I’ll quote Mr. Noori from above: “Sony has this great strategy of “one kernel rules them all” which means that when we make Xperia X work properly, making other Sony Xperia phones work with Sailfish OS is going to be the easiest thing in the world!”

So as I told you, you have no point. And really no grasp of that which you speak, either.

Your assertion that some of us are “starry-eyed fools” is not only insulting but belies the fact that you speak like a “starry-eyed fanboy” who is willing to overlook shortcomings that some of us can see and are willing to voice, God forbid that someone disagree with Jolla! After all, we are only the pesky customers who part with our hard earned money.

3. “Xperia X was an excellent choice as a starting point for this project”

Agree..it WAS……until it became apparent that the X is about to be discontinued. I originally argued FOR this being a great move when it was announced all the way back in Feb (or March according to James) but no longer can after recent revelations.

4. “Claiming self-sabotage is ludicrous.”

No. It’s not. Let me try and break down the problem for you seeing as you “cant see the woods from the trees” as they say.

Why would some potential customers for the SFOS Xperia X put down money now when they know they can hold off and wait for a better (and still in production & supported) device a short time there after hmm???

Please answer but do try to resist the temptation of replying in the manner of a “starry-eyed fanboy”.

5. “Sony has this great strategy of “one kernel rules them all” which means that when we make Xperia X work properly, making other Sony Xperia phones work with Sailfish OS is going to be the easiest thing in the world!”

If that’s the case, what Jolla should have done was to keep their mouths shut and work on the Xperia X in the background and make an announcement once the work was complete and able to be ported over to the rest of the Sony Open Devices range but again “starry-eyed fanboys” are too busy high-fiving each other in celebration of any meaningless titbit from their idol to be able to be remain unbiased or critical in their thinking I suspect.

Either you’ve totally missed (or are unable or unwilling to acknowledge) the scenario where most of us will consider going down the Xperia X route only to find that at some point soon after we might be able to run SFOS on another device. So which is it? (unable, unwilling or unforeseen on your part?)

For some I appreciate that this wont matter but for others it could be a bitter pill to swallow considering how well Jolla has looked after its customers in the past.

Unless of course your a “starry-eyed fanboy” who simply loves to keep giving Jolla his money??

+ one more: No spare batteries available for
Jolla C. (Perhaps few in India, but they don’t send outside India. How shall be the situation of the spare batteries for Sony Xperia X after half to one year?

Question:

Why does Jolla not help us and convey the spare batteries through Jolla shop with small delivery fee?

I have started to count from one to three and started to ask me why we don’t receive better service. Just receive the phone and the left alone without any physical service. Uups! The excellent
UI SFOS does not bear alone.

My husband and I are such ordinary users, so we depend on what developers create. We still have a Jolla 1. Really a nice , elegant OS, but also a burden when you don”t want to have Google on it. Our Tutanota mail is not supported, so no notifications and no integration with calendar. I have no ‘presence’ on my Jolla.
We would like to be able to use WIRE on our Jolla’s and when the Xperia comes, on that phone. WIRE is also available on Linux. There are so many developers here. Why did nobody create a client for WIRE?
Another thing: Jolla promised to give us the possibility of mirroring. It is still not there.

Vesa-Matti, can you answer this question: why does Jolla not support Fairphone in such a way that it can be used with Dalvik, with Here, etc.? And making it easy for ordinary consumers to install Sailfish on it?
Fairphone is a better option than the Sony. It has a better processor and the way Fairphone is produced is much much better too.

Any news regarding your final discussions about supporting the crowdfunding campaign for a new SailfishOS Tablet? crowdfunding
Meanwhile the campaign is over and has reached about 250% of its financing target, but is still open for backers.

Having read about it, I am disappointed. I fear that Jolla did not make a good choice again by implementing its OS in a low-budget device. Jolla 1 was cheapish, JollaC also and now this Sony , nearly outdated device.If you only have developing countries in mind, the western world will not accept Sailfish anymore because of the unattractive always-behind devices. And in the developing world people with a little extra money will choose another brand too. Shame. Sailfish deserves better.

The X is a top-end device except for the CPU which is a power-efficient mid-high range one. Its list price is 629€, although due to it being on the market for a while you can purchase it below 300€. It has a Snapdragon 650 CPU and 3 GB RAM. Hardly an outdated device.

Because it’s been on the market for a while and non-returning cost has been recovered, so it can be sold for just the cost of production plus margin, as it happens to any similar device. Don’t overrate the 8xx CPUs, they are little help in real use with respect to 6xx, consume more power, and moreover the 650 in the X is several generations more recent than the 801 in the Fairphone, and in fact it beats it in Antutu about 70000 to 45000 (which means that the X CPU is almost twice as powerful as the one in the Fairphone).

Cheers lads, I appreciate your efforts but I’m once again really disappointed me for not delivering anything concrete but more empty promises. It certainly has been an excellent roller coaster ride with Jolla over the last four yrs or so. I love thr OS but since my Jolla 1 has decided to discontinue to co-operate with me I’m forced to move on. As we all know options available are limited. Seeing the tablet project fail I’m not willing to buy Xperia X before it is absolutely sure the OS is ready and available for customers. As there are no guarantees Sailfish will ever be available I’m gonna get either XZ premium… I.still very much hope all the success to you in your challenging task and hope from the bottom.of.my heart that Sailfish will be available for XZ premium sometime later. Sail on!

If anyone isn’t overly excited about Jolla’s Xperia X announcment, head over to red.com (a digital cinema camera company) and see what must be the most bizarre yet stupendous high-end phone ever… (however it won’t go down well here because it runs Android).

Who wants to be seen with the Red Phone? A crazy thing. It is more expensive than an iphone. But still a spying device. What I am looking for is a real alternative to Google and Apple. We had high hopes for Jolla, but the strategy of Jolla is taking our hope away.

I am an average user and i would like to understand something. In order to flash Sailfish OS i need to unlock the bootloader. And that means that the quality of the camera will drop. Is this right. Thank you in advance. Best regards

The driver that Sony provided for AOSP devices (Open devices) used to make the camera resolution to be locked at 8mp. Fortunately they have a new driver which enables AOSP devices to use 20MP of the sensor’s resolution. What is yet to be clear is that we are unsure when we will be able to deliver the 20MP resolution, is it going to be after the launch or before it, we are unsure yet.

That’s a great news! And it should obviously be delivered after the product launch for three reasons:
– A 8MP photo with a Sony sensor will look already amazing compared to other official Sailfish phones, so people will be happy with it.
– It will not add further delay to the launch so people will be happy to already have their Xperia
– And… people will be happy when the improvement comes later.

So a phone that we can open, like the other half on Jolla 1, will not be made anymore? I regret that. Jolla could have went on, creating a phone with parts that can be replaced and improved, like Fairphone.
Puzzlephone is in delay because of a lack of funding and it is not certain that this phone will be produced at all. So I question this again: if Jolla is not able to make a phone anymore, why not coöperate fully as a software company with a hardware company that looks most like the Jolla 1: Fairphone?

We have never ended our discussion with Fairphone. It is still very much on the table. The plans are delayed because of various reasons from both sides. But we are still willing to cooperate with Fairphone. And the reason we don’t produce a phone anymore is that we are no longer a hardware vendor and have changed our strategy since last year.

#James,
You have stated that most SFOS users require Android apps.
Can you present the exact statistics?
The very reason I use Jolla phone is at least some remote possibility to avoid Google.
Why is google search engine the native browser default?
I never use it, prefer Webcat instead, and my setting is duckduckgo now:)
Should the forum users vote?
My vote is NO GOOGLE.
Doubt it counts.

Yes, this is my concern too. I want nothing from Google on my Jolla. At Openrepos you can get other search engines such as Duckduckgo, Qwant and Startpage.But that’s not default. Tutanota mail is not supported, so I get no notifications, because I have no Google account. I have asked Jolla staff several times to change this. My husband has also a gmail account and this works smooth on Jolla so it is clear that Jolla prefers to support Google.
I use Webcat too (the default Jolla browser is unusable) but unfortunately it is not possible to use Qwant, the new European search engine with it.
With Webcat I can download sounds for the first time in three years. The default browser never worked well.
Recently developers have made really good apps for Sailfish: Piepmatz and Tooter for example. They make my Jolla more attractive.
Thanks to Leszek, Ygriega and Dysko. Good work!
Now, Jolla team, please go on with more effort. Focus on European coöperation. Sailfish is a nice OS and it deserves a larger public.

You should be able to customize the url even further, for example, to change the region to Sweden the url would look like this: https://www.qwant.com/?r=SE&q=%s
just remember that you need to have q=%s in there, all options are separated with “&”.
You can costumize the search engine as you want on your laptop/pc by pressing the cogwheel and then you can copy the url and add “&q=%s” to the end of the string. Actually, I just discovered the search engine by reading your post and I have not really played around much with webcat since I first gor my Jolla 1 phone. The default browser crashes all the time for me, so I will try webcat for a while too. Web pirate is also a good option for when the other Sailfish browsers are not working properly with a specific website, but it does not (to my knowledge) have the option for custom search engines.

I really can’t provide you with any statistics but take a look at how many times Android app support has been downloaded on the Jolla store and you’ll get a pretty good picture. The reason that Google is the default search engine is the popularity of the search engine. You of course have the ability to change it even before using the browser.

And what percentage of those harbour downloads is out of love for Android, and what percentage of downloads are done because of bare necessity, because the end-user can’t find specific native support? What you should be focusing on is as I have stated above to remove the very need for people to download the Android app support. This insistence on Android compability is really starting to annoy me. I likewise don’t have any statistics, but I would hazard to guess that a lot of users came to Sailfish because they loathe, detest or downright hate Google – myself included. You couldn’t pay me enough to put anything Google-related on my phone. I would really like to see more of your limited resources focused on native app support and features that will make it completely unnecessary to download dalvik from harbour, and less on making Sailfish just a sligtly more complicated way of running Android apps.

What you have “stated” above is that you want Jolla to develop apps for all third party services in the world. Are you really serious?
What Jolla need is to convince those third party services to port their app on Sailfish. And this can’t be done without users.
And users won’t come just because they hate Google (the few thousands of them already came, the others are on iOS). To me, to attract lambda users, you must at least tell them that they can continue to use the services they are used to.

But you’re right on one point. Jolla must focus on native app support and finally allow the use of QtLocation (among others) in the Store, because a lot of these third-parties apps involve maps, and not being able to easily put a map based app in the Store is just ridiculous.

You must have an extraordinarily limited range of apps if you genuinely believe that Jolla can provide Sailfish alternatives for all of them. Jolla is trying to develop a commercially viable product – this requires meeting the needs and expectations of the masses. If they don’t meet your needs then I’m afraid you have to look elsewhere (they don’t meet mine – high end hardware – hence I ordered a Red – it is pointless me “complaining” as if somehow my needs are more important than the commercial realities of the mobile world).

The point here was not to discuss how many people need it or how many people want it.
Firstly, the point of Android compatibility is to fill the *need* of the user in case an app can’t be found in the native ecosystem. Secondly, of course, the whole point of Android app compatibility is the necessity of it because naturally, an OS that has millions of users has more apps than an OS with thousands.
We definitely understand the importance of native applications but our limited resources are currently focused on other priorities. That does not mean that we are not going to focus on the important topic of native applications.

Thank you for the link. Yes, this is a good subject for a blog post.The Jolla team could be a bit more enthousiastic about it. We all had to come over the former tablet disaster, but this is history now.
I saw that the battery is slightly better and that this tablet has bluetooth 4. A bluetooth keyboard is also availble. There are about 300 backers now. Let’s hope it will be realised this time.

I believe someone complained about Sailfish OS being on a Sony Xperia because it is a year old and a low-range phone. Frankly, just because a phone is a year old doesn’t make it inferior. I can’t speak for others, but I seldom get the newest/latest of anything; it is kind of refreshing to buy “older” items at discounted prices. I hope Jolla learns from this current fiasco. Hopefully, it will make Sailfish OS available on a mid-range phone or two in the mere future. GET IT TO-BLOODY-GETHER, JOLLA!!

Modular smartphone is a stillborn idea that won’t gain any traction in foreseeable future.

A smartphone is NOT your x86 IBM-PC, where all functionality is divided in well-defined modules, connected with a small number of well-known and documented interfaces. A man who is designing a smartphone is swimming in a fetid cesspool of hundreds and thousands of COMPLETELY NON-INTERCHANGEABLE CPUs, GPUs, RAM chips, cameras and other microcircuitry, which is talking to each other in a wide variety of (often proprietary and poorly documented) protocols (both software AND physical). Putting it all together into a working device is an enormous undertaking as it is, but making the modules interchangeable is a total dead end.

Are you saying this because Google quitted the Ara project? Maybe you are right, but it is also a pessimistic and conservative way of thinking. Indeed, Puzzlephone is in delay. They say because of a lack of funding, not because their modular concept is impossible. Fairphone is not a modular phone in the way you describe it, but they managed to produce a smartphone with changeable parts and that is a nice improvement. Now it is the only phone that can be opened buy the user, except the Jolla1.

Since Jolla is an operating system vendor, it is not self-evident that this specifically Xperia X Project exists for this community. – Neither I remember to hear or read from projects like this from Google or Apple!! There is just a rumor, than a big bang (presentation) and then silence again.
You share your ideas and we can discuss it – I feel like a part of Jolla

James if you truly believe this, you disqualified yourself completely.
Until now I always showed great respect to you, but if your statement is here and now more people should say thank you. And you truly believe Jolla is a OS vendor you must be forgotten the past 3 years, you lost your credibility completely.

I will NOT say thank you to your employer who took my money and has not (until the current day) shown any respect to me or all the other 10.000 backers who are still waiting on a clear / transparant and honest communication from Jolla about the refund process.

No communication false and empty promises is all we got the past 3 year, and you truly think we should say THANK YOU ????

I’m sorry but you’re mixing two completely different matters. First of all, if you read all of our posts regarding the refunds and how the tablet story went down, there really isn’t anything more to say. Everything is on the table and we have said exactly what went down (+ all of my comments to you personally that shed even more light to the matter). Secondly, talking about respect, don’t you think that Jolla’s engineers, developers and masterminds behind this OS deserve a thank you from more people? Do you think every single person at Jolla deserves to be pointed at because of what happened? Clearly, you are not looking at this by an open mind. Excuse me, but I really don’t think so. You are entitled to what you want or don’t want to say. If you want to be the bigger person and say thank you to countless hours of work behind Sailfish OS and a bunch of passionate people trying their to bring an alternative to the market with limited resources and funding, it’s your choice. If you want to be the person who comments on every post saying that we are thieves, it’s fine too. Either way, you are entitled to your money and we have never said that we won’t pay you back.

Sir, if you sincerely think that everything has been said what needed to be said about the refund than THINK AGAIN!

Your management announced a new system to be rolled out in July 2017. And today 26th of July 2017 this announcement raised a lot of questions, valid questions regarding being transparent about the proces.

But as we have seen before history is repeating itself and it seems to be another false / empty promise from Jolla Management pissing of the comunity members of the first hour.

I pitty you and the engineers working under this incompetent management which proven a bunch of cowards.

If they had balls they would have entered the discussion with the community and supplied full transparency.

So James, one saying for your .. if the shoe fits ….

If you had read well I never EVER insulted ANY worker of Jolla other than the Management.

So please stop feeling sorry for yourself you choose to work for this company / incompetent management. This is still YOUR own decision as of any other co-worker of you.

So do not blame me of being disrespectful and read my comments again they point to your management WHICH ARE A BUNCH OF COWARDS LIARS AND THIEVES !!

I showed to be the bigger person in here by showing patience and respect for more than 2 years but that ship has SAILED, I am fed up with all the BS your management is feeding the community.

I second what Oulot has written. There should be more people saying thank you. There’s too many complainers and poster with negative comments. I think these people discourage people with other views from posting.

I really don’t think some people appreciate the problems that arise when developing complex things like an OS or adapting or modifying an OS.

The way I see it Jolla will get criticised for not letting Jolla Sailors know what’s happening, and then when they do they give advance notice they get criticised for taking too long to get the job finished. There’s the ago old saying 80% complete, 80% to go.

I’d be willing to bet the same people complaining about how long it’s taking would be the first to complain the OS wasn’t ready for everyday use if it was released prematurely.

Good things take time.

P.S. Oulot, your English is very good, much much better than my German.

P.P.S. I too am a past N9 user. The best Nokia phone I ever had. A Nokia with Sailfish and Carl Zeiss would be a very good phone.

@AlanBreen, I agree. I second what Oulot has written. Jolla gets kudos elsewhere. I haven’t yet said thanks to Jolla, so here I go. I happy Jolla is around, I would like to have something like SFOS around.
I think Jolla is more in touch with the community than other companies, and I like it this way, but, no matter what they do, there will be always some wind blowing in their faces.
Keep on sailing…

Thank you for this comment! It is really heart warming!! There is always wind blowing against our little boat but we are sailing through with all the difficulties on our way! We are glad to have a community that is willing to interact with us as we are more than happy to interact with them.

I meant to add in my last post. I too use Android apps on my Jolla C. Having the ability to run these is important to me. While there are more and more Jolla apps right now I wouldn’t want Sailfish without access to Android apps.

I hope Jolla are watching the indiegogo progress, 173% of target with 9 days left…………. proves there’s a demand from a user base fed up of old crappy hardware, I hope this guy does it and delivers on time and all goes well for him, then maybe they can take a look at how 1 person accomplishes a task from start to finish.

A huge part of the reason why the YouYota campaign is so successful is that chenliangchen is NOT affiliated with Jolla in any way, and hence does not have his credibility obliterated by the jPad clusterfuck.

> maybe they can take a look at how 1 person accomplishes a task from start to finish

He won’t have much to “accomplish”. The production lines were set up and ready long time ago, since this model was *already in production* in mid-2015.

The only thing needed to properly make the jPad is (and was) paying money *directly* to people who actually designed and produced this goddamn tablet (i.e. Chinese), without fly-by-night operators (like our beloved fat-faced Sami Pienimäki) standing in between. Since now this is the case, I have pretty much no doubts that the backers will get their tablets in due time.

I dare to look back!
January 28, 2016 by Antti Saarnio:
“…
Furthermore, due to the delays in the latest financing round it has simply become too late to produce all the tablets for the project.
The supplier no longer has the needed components and many of them are no longer available.
Unfortunately, there is nothing that can be done now to change this.
…
Your Jolla captain,
Antti”
So the Youyota Sailfish OS 2-in-1 Tablet will be produced with parts which are not available! Wow, it’s magic!

It’s kind of funny how the people who moan the hardest about the Jolla Tablet debacle are generally the ones who know the least…

Seriously, the main reason why they were never able to fill all of the orders was because the additional (non-backer) funding needed to actually produce the tablets fell trough. This resulted in their contract manufacturer, who they couldn’t pay because of the funding falling trough, took a good chunk of Jolla’s parts as payment and used them to make Android tablets, with Jolla’s logo and all.

When Jolla finally got their finances in better shape they then found that while they had had originally bought enough components for all of the backer devices and then some, many of these components had since gone out of production. Because of this they simply couldn’t replace all the parts their contract manufacturer had taken as payment without asking.

The fact that the Jolla Tablet relies on parts that have long since gone out of production is the main reason why I have some strong doubts about the feasibility of the chinese knockoff jolla tablet. If you read trough the page you can also see plenty of broken english, which is never a good sign either.

All the people here like Sailfish and they all grant Sailfish a future. And we want Jolla to be a stable and reliable company. That’s all. The Youyota campaign will not get as many backers as the Jolla tablet got, but the fact that there are already nearly 400 proofs that these backers really hope to use Sailfish. Nothing to be sour about.
I hope that Jolla will support this Youyota tablet.

Good grief, you are all just as bad as iOS & Droid fan boys, if not more annoying!

It’s simple. some of us just want to use SFOS on something that isnt the original Jolla handset, is that SOOO hard to understand?

I didnt bother with the tablet but if someone feels hard done by, why not leave it up to the company to sort out?

No one likes feeling that they’ve been ripped off and if any of the recent stuff is an indicator, Jolla are clueless at working with their own “community” so I can understand why people feel the need to keep mentioning it again & again

It’s kind of funny how the people who blame other people of “knowing the least” are generally the ones who know the least.

The $2.5M raised on IGG was MORE THAN ENOUGH to actually produce the tablets, as was said numerous times by Jolla representatives (including Antti Saarnio in his “Open letter to Jolla community”).

Which is not surprising, considering that the jPad was actually an already existing tablet model (Aigo), and the whole “hardware program” boiled down to a couple of tweaks of arguable necessity.

The reason why the jPad campaign went into SNAFU was that the Jolla management was *COUNTING* on receiving the investor money that you mentioned, and instead of securing the deal with Chinese, dumped the IGG money into SFOS2.0 development. Which is a textbook example of business shortsightedness and mismanagement.

> If you read trough the page you can also see plenty of broken english, which is never a good sign either.

Why is that? The page looks like a standard AliExpress page: no saccharine marketing talk, only laconic description of the project and photos of moulds. Au contraire, it instills much more confidence than the original jPad IGG page. I’ve spent several thousands Euro on AliExpress during last 3 or 4 years, and I must say that I’ve never met customer service that was THIS good. Jolla’s customer service isn’t fit to hold a candle to Chinese.

Managed to get a good deal on ab Xperia X single sim-free unlocked phone. Can’t wait to try SFOS on a fast piece of quality hardware, but in the meantime have to continue to put up with the Android experience. The phone is very quick after gaining root privilege and removing as much Google and Sony bloatware as possible.

Be good if Jolla can get a production release of SFOS before start of 2018. Good luck with the development, and please consider an early release without Play-store support, for people like me who cannot abide Google. Hope your developers continue to keep up their good work and manage to make a success of the Xperia X projet.

Can someone from developers give anserw for my question, I think that company who`s create this OS don`t want give it a great future, because they don`t listen users and don`t have a good idea for this OS. I think that will be better if you really release a mid range phone with your os and give android apps support if you want or you help port your OS to other phones but we must have good support from your site.

To be fair, I think you do get support and a response from Jolla (or James who is, presumably, an agent thereof). The Sony Xperia x is a mid range phone which will have Sailfish and Android app support – isn’t that what you are asking for? They are no longer a hardware company so asking for a Jolla branded phone is unreasonable.

but I don`t see at now any xperia device with native sailfishOS but I with my xiaomi redmi note 4 or anyone who have sailfishOS on Nexus or other devices want have native sailfish OS, maybe this is the way release OS to devices supported by porting scene.

Exactly! Far too easy to be negative about this massively difficult undertaking. Jolla are just about the last man standing regarding an alternative phone OS and it will be great if they can poke Apple and Google in the eye by producing a better and more private OS for us. The Xperia X project will, I suspect, either make or break the Jolla Company. Fingers crossed it is the former.

We are well into July so I assume there’s been progress with the Xperia. Might it be useful to give a few insights into the feedback you’ve received from the select few? Nothing to negate your NDAs or anything but just a friendly update. Such a move might reinforce your oft stated commitment to the “community” and reassure those who are waiting for the general release that things are moving along.

I’m started to use my new Xperia X with Android since the hardware condition of my Jolla 1 is too bad. This new experience is not too bad and the few apps that I have tested so far (e.g. OsmAnd) work even better.

Hopefully Jolla will make the OS download available soon before I’ll get too used with what I have now.

Please stop complaining about refunds. Try to get over your loss. Consider to donate to Jolla so they can go on. At least half of it. Jolla bowed deep and it is important that this OS stays alive and grows.
When the Sony XperiaX arrives, I will buy it, although I would prefer something more ethical. The XperiaX promises to be better than the Jolla1 and it is THE opportunity for the Jolla team to be taken seriously.
Besides that, Xperia devices are elegant and they have good cameras and sound quality. So, altogether not so bad.

So, what? Do you really believe we should all donate the 2. half of the refund?
Really, you did not get it… The Jolla-owners owe us the whole sum! They ask us through that table-project to lend them money to produce and deliver a Jolla-tablet. First, they did not deliver, second they did not pay back the money, third, they “proudly” presented us the information, that a certain part of the tablet money was abused to finance the sailfish OS. How on earth can you trust such kind of OWNERS ?!!!? Hereby, I do not criticize the employees of Jolla but the OWNERS!
Trust has to be earned by reliable activities.
Reliable activities we way for, at least some of us here on this blog…

Here the official statement of Antti in 2015:
“We receive daily more and more questions about the status of the Jolla Tablet and many people are seemingly frustrated – rightfully so. After I showed the cost breakdown for the Jolla Tablet project in my previous blog post, many have asked that why did we spend a big part of the tablet crowdfunding money on software development and not the tablet itself. To me this question as such does not make sense, since Sailfish OS is our product, our crown jewel, which we aim to make perfect for all of you – the tablet hardware is only a platform for the software.”

It was truely not the task to develop the OS further but rather to deliver a tablet!
The software development is not related to the tablet project only a software adjustment. There is a BIG difference between both tasks.

Yes I really believe that everyone who keeps whining for a refund should stop doing so.This is what I get: that it is quite cruel to throw salt in the wound all the time. Of course I too was angry about the mismanagement and all the nice empty words that followed. On the other hand, not one backer went totally broke by losing his/her amount of money, while Jolla as a company had to start over again, trying to win new confidence, which is not easy after such a disaster. Be a man, forgive and forget. Donate at least half of it. If you have comments on Jolla, give your ideas about the policy of the company as it is now, not as it was.

As already expressed on TMO (talk.meamo.org) and TJC I believe that Jolla has taken the right turn towards a pure software company that SELLS software to those (like myself) that don’t want to pay a toll when using the software – I just bought a Sony F5121 (guess why) and I am quite shocked how many contracts you have to sign when using the preinstalled apps. So I stopped playing around with the new toy – except for using CITRIX form time to time (as I do on the Aquafish).
As others said, we should praise Jolla for not giving up. So thank you, sailors, for staying on board the dinghy. I hope we can reward you not only with thanks but with real money one day (that hopefully is coming soon), real money we pay for SFOS.
Please apologize, I cannot resist to address the tablet funding: we all should be well aware that none of us was ever entitled to any refund. It was and is indeed a nice gesture that we got a partial refund. So thank you, sailors, also for the refund (and please Dave and others, don’t kill me for that)

Those are really good words, and I can’t agree more with them.
Unfortunately some people just don’t want to understand, and there’s no worst deaf than those refusing to listen. I’m not just talking about the trolls infesting this website, just to make an example I went to the indiegogo page of the SF tablet and people are *still* referring to their pledge as “my order”: I placed order #200 and bla bla, can I change my order’s address, can I combine my two orders together………………

It’s been explained over and over on this blog, on social networks, in chat that backing a crowdsourced project is *not* the same as going to ebay.

Unfortunately people don’t want to hear about that, and I hope this new indiegogo thing will go well or we’re in for a new wave of trolls coming to this blog.

Good to be reading some sensible comments for a change and a big thank you to James Noori for staying the course in this blog despite all the sour comments and remarks about long past events, however true they might be.

The image has not yet been released to the Cbeta group. We said that it will be when we have Sailfish OS 2.1.2 ready for Cbeta, and that should happen in a few days.

I can’t yet report on overcoming obstacles as last week many sailors were on a well deserved summer vacation so I am yet unsure about the progress on that.

About the camera, we are investigating the possibilities of using 20mpx of the whole sensor, and according to Vesa-Matti, it should be doable. Initially though, we are beginning with 8Mpx.

And about other Sony devices, as soon as we are done with this one, it will be much easier to port Sailfish OS to other Sony devices. No timeline announced but at least the obstacles won’t be this large.

GO, JOLLA, GO! You can make it to the finish line. If you do, you are the leading in spy-free mobile OS development world-wide once again! It’s worth it, so Go, GO, GO…

(As a meaningless update on my situation: my Intex phone has now actually died, as it indicated it would. I have to migrate to the pre-installed Android on my Xperia X, that sits here,waiting for SFOS. I sincerely hope I can come back to the SFOS community sooner rather than later.)

I totally agree – Go Jolla! The thought of having to move to Android, even temporarily, doesn’t fill me with joy.

I don’t appreciate having a corporation tracking me in everything I do, so that’s why I’m looking forward to being able to replace my increasingly difficult white Jolla phone. Its done pretty well though, considering.

I hope you appreciate that any frustration (apart from tablet refund people) that you see is due to pretty much everyone here being desperate to get their hands on a stable, supported & long term SFOS device?

I have to admit to being a tad disappointed though that the Cbeta haven’t yet got their hands on the lastest image as the post made it sound like their input was needed to pull this project off?

Out of interest, how much input are you expecting from them in the overall scheme of this project? 10%, 20%, 60%????

James, thank you for listening! IMHO those tiny updates help a lot in taming the impatience (a little bit). It would be great if you could report once in a week (or so) on project progress or even set backs (which are sure to come) just to give everyone the feeling that the dignghy is sailing on and not stuck in a lull.

Whether next month or by Christmas, JUST SORT OUT ALL THE ISSUES AND MAKE SAILFISH OS AVAILABLE ON ALL SONY XPERIAS! I want to be one of the very few folks in my neck-of-the-woods rocking/sporting it! Those words of encouragement ought to light a fire in Jolla’s ass!

Yes, it`s be good plan to release SailfishOS for more Devices, in my opinion I would like spend some money for buy OS licence but this OS must be available for more devices (maybe Xperia M2 too and Xiaomi Redmi Note 4)

The idea as communicated for the last 7 months was to support only devices from the Sony Open Devices Program as Sony provides drivers for all hardware components for those devices for alternative OS projects. The list of devices being covered by that project is quite impressive and there should be devices for all user groups available. But you surely cannot expect Jolla to ever support any devices which are not in that list.

Time is ticking .. July came .. and is allmost gone still NO WORD about the “start of the process” announced by our Jolla fairyland spokesperson a.k.a. C.E.O Sami Pienimäki in his Summer update over a month ago (22nd of June).

So long story short MR. Bullsh*t (aka CEO) had more than a month to “start the process” but NO ONE still has seen or heard anything about it.

Another false promise of the Thieves better known as the Management of Jolla.

actually this blog makes reference to a refund programme above if you just read:

“Lastly: one of our community members just recently suggested an idea of offering Sailfish OS for Sony Xperia software as one type of compensation alternative in the Jolla Tablet refund program. This sounds like a great idea, and we have also thought about it.

But first, we need to evaluate how feasible it is, and in what schedule it could be done. We’d also be happy to hear what you others think of the idea! Please let us know in the comments below, or if you do not wish to comment publicly you can also email us to community(at)jolla(dot)com.”

So Jolla themselves appear to be reaching out to tablet backers who are due refunds and asking for ideas etc

The conversations here sometimes digress due to lack of any news regarding the Xperia project to keep us focused on it

Is it any wonder some of us get bored!?!

You will see from my convo with James about 3 days ago that Jolla has yet to release the SF image to the Cbeta group! :O

I have 2 questions:
Does anyone know if there is a jack for headphones on the Xperia X? Or is it only suitable for wireless bt headphones?
Is every Sony Xperia X single sim as we can buy it now suitable for Sailfish or do we need to wait for a special device from the Sony Open Devices program?

Below on the frontpage of my Jolla I see now a camera icon for quick access to the camera. This makes that I have to swipe two times before seeing the page with apps. If I swipe downwards, I get the camera function, but not the app pages. To reach the apps, I swipe to the right first and then downwards, which takes more time. Couldn’t you put the icon on top of the frontpage or on the events page?

But what about support other devices, there is not good to support one devices, better ways is support many devices where is possible to install SFOS, ahh and when Xperia X get access to install SFOS, we could get access to install android apps?

Greetings. It has taken a couple of days of intermittent reading to get to the bottom of this comment section. I feel like I know some of you after weeks of your comments.

I have been and continue to be a pleased Nokia N9 owner, and that in the U.S.A. where the masses have no clue what an N9 is/was. My wife had an N9 until last year when hers failed, and was replaced by a red Lumia 900 that was donated to us because the person had it laying around and thought us to be “Nokia fans”. Our two teenage sons have N9s and have only known Meego as their phone O/S. Fortunately, neither of them are the types to follow the masses just because that’s what everyone else does. Just this past Friday night we had a family discussion about the N9 again and how advanced it was for September 2011. Even their friends make comments about the build quality of the Nokia and things I take for granted like the clock on the standby mode.

But my oldest son’s USB port is no longer making good connection with the motherboard. I have parts from four previous N9s in my home office and have repaired much over the last nearly six years. This time, however, I decided to see if Sailfish would ever realistically come to a phone that would work well in the U.S. and even have LTE speeds.

To my great delight, I see that the Sony Xperia X could soon have SFOS as an option for it. Knowing nothing of the Sony phones, my wife and I have both been surfing reviews, specs, etc. We are excited!!!

Reading through the comments I can see a lot of different and valid viewpoints with people having many different experiences. I really feel sorry for those who have lost money with Jolla tablets, and lost trust in the things said (or not said) by leadership. I don’t wish to demean anyone’s perspective, nor sound pompous, nor minimize people’s losses. I know what it is like to lose money in business and in personal transactions and it hurts.

I also understand what it is like to be in leadership at a business, on a board of organizations, and the owner of a business. Those are situations fraught with legal challenges where even the best-intended person who wants to tell their customer base all of the information so they would all understand why leadership did/is doing whatever is being done, but for very real reasons with quite serious repercussions, they cannot.

I have not lost money in Jolla, so I realize I cannot really speak from the same place as you who have. But I will say that I admire that Jolla has continued to press onward when they could have easily just failed and called it quits.

They tried their hand at hardware and learned a very expensive and painful lesson (or two). I’m very glad that they redefined their roles as software-only.

I am actually quite surprised that Sony bothers to allocate any resources to an open platform when for all intents and purposes in the marketplace the world is dominated by Apple and Google with the likes of even Microsoft failing. I think it is quite visionary of Sony to help “the little guys” make it at all.

The economic realities for Jolla cannot be that rosy of a picture. I can only imagine the overall state of morale at Jolla must have serious ups and downs over the last few years. As the analogy has been stated here, those little dinghies fighting raging waves on a big ocean has to be fatiguing if nothing else.

Yet when I read someone’s statement about the little boat on the water, the first picture that popped into my head was the movie “The Finest Hours”. I feel like the rest of the mobile world are on these huge ships that “own” the oceans. Despite my best efforts to alert people about how their “great” phones are spying on them and selling their information to the companies, how they just invite the advertising into their lives, my friends are just tired of hearing about it because they simply do not care.

It befuddles me as to why people are so quick to give up their privacy and freedom. Do you know how crazy I sound to people in America to say that I’m actually looking at Russian options for a mobile phone?!?! That, of course, was the last thing I had read about the most updated hardware to possibly have SFOS on it, until this Sony announcement.

I feel like these people are like those on one of the large tankers that splits in half in the movie (and apparently in real life, too). Maybe Jolla’s efforts despite great adversity will come to the aid of many in the future? Who knows. I, in addition to the many of you, am excited to hear of continuing efforts from Jolla to get this working.

Though my preferences in some ways are different than the choice presented to us from Jolla, I am glad that they are doing something…anything…to make this dream a reality. Kudos to Jolla and the resilient, resourceful, and passionate community that has gotten all of us this far.

I do wish we had more detailed and frequent updates, but I understand that those may not happen. I’m still naïve, but I will continue to trust that everyone at Jolla and Sony who are working on this are doing so to the best of their ability. I would imagine that at least the Jolla people are “all in” on this project and not just there to collect a paycheck. Let’s face it, if this doesn’t work, there may not be a lot of other options available at Jolla. So I am, therefore, inclined to believe that everyone is giving it their very best effort to make this happen as rapidly as possible with the very best quality possible. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Finally, for any of the N9/Meego staff that came over to Jolla from Nokia, thanks to you for such an enduring piece of mobile phone art! Never before has a piece of technology garnered such passion and commitment to continue repairing and working around to enable it to survive this long. In a world of disposable electronics, the product of your work stands out as a shining example of what mankind is capable of. Now if only the ransomware creator communities could pull together and help Jolla, I think we’d have a solution in no time. Heck, they could even fund the project.

OK, I’m done and will make sure future posts are far shorter in length.

Pssst, let me tell you a secret that even Google does not know yet: nothing on earth is eternal, not even Google, nor Amazon, nor Apple, nor Microsoft.
My first mobile phone was not a Nokia but a Sony Ericsson. Lateron I wanted to choose between the N9 and the iphone 3gs. Because I had already a Mac, I choose the iphone. It was my last iphone, for when Jolla came, I bought the Jolla 1. A nice, elegant OS, a promising alternative to the spying tools from the big giants. We all know of the disaster of the tablets, the fall and rise of the Jolla team. And now they really seem to come back with the announcement of a serious device like the Sony Xperia.
My husband and I have initially had a lot of difficulties with our Jolla’s, because we are no techs. Since the OS has grown up more, this is over.Paid Android apps are not available, so if you want Android, you often have to accept apps with ads, which we don’t like at all. But fortunately developers are making Sailfish clients of many popular apps and the OS works so smooth and simple that we want to keep this going. And why should you pay E900 for a device like the iphone while it has so many features that you don’t use?
Our children are adults, they make their own choice. Maybe they choose a Sony with Sailfish when they see ours. My wish concerning Sailfish is this: we should be able to go to a Sailfish developer and ask for a Sailfish client-app. Why mot a banking app on Sailfish, f.e. Software-shops, that would be nice.

Error: it was the N95, an attractive competitor to the iphone 3gs, that I fancied then, not the N9. I chose the iphone not only because of the easy syncing with my Mac, but also of the app system. I still think Nokia lost because of the lack of a proper app store with paid apps. The Americans had an advantage with their international credit cards. European banks are not organised into one system. This is also a problem that Jolla has to deal with.

You are correct that these companies aren’t immortal. As the technology changes, companies come and go. What is encouraging is that the Jolla team appears to have a technology that is perfectly positioned for an era where people the world over grow tired of intrusion into their personal communications. At some point there will be a tipping point. Trust is not easily gained and can be lost quite rapidly. Should there be an eventual backlash against the Apple and Google offerings, it would take them a lot of effort to transform their products into more open platforms, and then it would take additional time for the buying public to trust them. Jolla is positioned for this next era quite well, I hope.

Thank you for also explaining your path from 3gs to Jolla. I am glad that there have been forerunners such as yourself and the many others on this forum who have paved the way and sustained Jolla to the point where this new phone option is a reality. Since the first announcement of Jolla, I was very excited and wanted to be a part of it. But the frequency use in America would have, as I understood it, constrained us to 2G network performance only. That was a step too far as long as our trusty N9s kept working. I respected the business decision for not designing a U.S. version, and have continued to hold out hope that we’d eventually have an acceptable alternative. Good things come to those who wait, yes?

Hi, and thank you so much for this beautiful comment. It is encouraging and motivating to read these comments left on our blog and it gives us even more hope to work our way through the tough ocean in between those big ships who claim to own the ocean.

It is very impressive to see that your family still uses Nokia N9 smartphones (despite some failures which is more than natural after 6 years). Keep that up!

We indeed have learnt a lot of lessons during these years of dealing with hardware and software, and we certainly are committed to pay back what we owe our backers. As you might have noticed, we already have paid 50% of the money we owe our backers back to them and have begun paying the rest of it from this month in phases. You already explained the reasons by your own.

We are working hard to make that dream a reality, and we are getting there!

You, sir, and the rest of the Jolla crew are most welcome. Your collective efforts, along with the passionate and supportive community, are far more encouraging to me. What you have all endured over the last years has gained my respect. People have great ideas all the time. Few are the people that move forward and face the adversity of bringing those ideas to fruition. Even fewer still are those that overcome the level of adversity that has faced the Jolla team. Cheers to you all for sticking it out.

Your story is encouraging to me, actually. Reading here and on TMO the level of effort that goes into the creation of the O/S and then the community efforts to help one another is inspiring. I have not personally felt or observed this level of caring about a piece of technology before ever. In a consumer culture, electronics are simply discarded and replaced with something new without so much as batting an eye. Your team is responsible for creating something that inspires others. That is not a light achievement right there!

Please keep up the good work. And thank you for your part in keeping us informed with the progress. It’s helpful to have someone interacting with the greater community. It’s another way where we feel a level of connection that otherwise wouldn’t exist.

Really nice comment ! That’s remind me that i would have like so much to buy a N9 when it was released. But the time it took for me to get decided, Nokia had abandonned Meego. So now, i’m pleased with my Jolla phone and i am eager to be able to use a Sony Xperia with Sailfish Os !

Yes, the N9 is a beauty. I am sorry that you missed out on it, but jealous that you have had the opportunity to experience the successor. It sounds like you have been able to walk with Jolla through adolescence into maturity. You will appreciate the new advancements far more than people such as myself that come strolling into Sailfish for the first time at version 2.1.2. You are a fortunate person. Thank you for supporting Jolla all these years and enabling them to survive to this point.

I was also quite fond of my N9. I’m still pissed off that the Nokia board cowardly sold the company off to Microsoft instead of putting its resources fully behind Meego. They would have taken a hit, but with the Nokia name and hardware quality intact, could still have been a major player. There are people that care about privacy and open-source software, and I’m sure there are companies and governments that do too for their own reasons. That’s an advantage Microsoft didn’t have with Windows Phone. By itself, not enough of a benefit to be market leader, but significant enough to have a solid base. Like Jolla, but on a much larger scale, and with the Nokia name and hardware.

Sadly enough, one day my N9 just didn’t boot anymore. And my Jolla 1 is also getting to that point, so I hope to have an Xperia or other model with an official and updating version of Sailfish.

I guess part of the frustration towards Jolla is that they provide the only alternative. If they don’t release something, we’re all stuck with Android and iOS. What a sad state of affairs in the mobile world…

Oh, wvh… How I, too, have questioned the old Nokia board of directors. I get that they have a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders, and I understand that they were probably shocked at the change in the mobile phone market with the introduction of Apple’s iPhone. But how I have lamented that there wasn’t a path forward that would have seen the hardware and software mature harmoniously alongside each other at Nokia. I agree with your comment wholeheartedly!

Alas, there was nothing that could be done to avert that path. Perhaps it is fortuitous that it went the way it did. I admit that it hasn’t appeared very fortunate, but with hardware and software able to be developed by different companies, and thus the risk spread out amongst different companies, perhaps the resulting technologies will far surpass what only one company would have been able to produce. I’m optimistic that this is the case.

And as Kea said – monopolies are unhealthy. I agree with you that it would be a sad state of affairs in the mobile world if we were left with only the two choices. But I wouldn’t be frustrated with Jolla because of that. I think they’ve learned some valuable and very difficult lessons as they have collectively sought to provide a new champion of the mobile O/S world – OK, let’s start with a third viable choice. But I have high hopes.

The FAQ still says we should wait for an official announcement before buying an Xperia X F5121. Can you finally confirm that we can buy the F5121 and the first SFOS image released will be for this phone?

In Denmark these phones are discontinued, only a few are still available on clearance sale – won’t be long then they are no longer available.

I would absolutely hate a situation where I do not have a SFOS powered phone, should my Aqua Fish break.

Currently I’m having an Intex Aqua Fish (imported from India), I also had a Jolla1, I participated in the Jolla tablet funding and I’m participating in the Youyota funding.

Keep up the good work and don’t, in any way, be discouraged by the moaners.

Thank you. Your reply made me smile. Yes, that masterpiece of tech-art is still used in the US. I’ve seen a couple of people on TMO post that they’re in the US using N9 and even one guy saying he had a Sailfish phone even though it was only 2G in the US. It’s been a secret (until now) desire of mine to actually see someone else using one in the US or anywhere. I was in West Africa two weeks ago and am in Hong Kong last week and this week. I always look on the planes and when going around for anyone to be using an N9 or even Jolla phone. I really have wanted to see someone with Sailfish just to hold one in my hand and have them show me how it works and see if they know about this upcoming Sony option.

I have yet to encounter anyone with either, but I will continue to look. It could happen.

Actually, in late 2011 I was in a tech meeting with a person who had recently moved to the US for his work. He was from Finland and he had an iPhone!!! I gave him quite a hard time about not having the N9. He was SOOOO apologetic. It was his work that pushed him toward the iPhone and he said he would have much rathered have the N9, but his work IT said they wouldn’t support it and there would be no apps for it.

He was honestly shocked that any American would have called him out like that for not having a Nokia. It was funny and sad, all rolled into one experience.

So yes, it’s rare that an American would still have an N9, but there has to be at least one more out there somewhere.

After reading the update from yesterday I couldn’t resist any longer and ordered a F5121 Xperia device today! (before it maybe no more available like former devices )
Now it’s up to the Jolla team: So please sail straight ahead and don’t disappointing your long lasting fans …
Good luck!

Hi, there is a matter most critical and important that has not been discussed yet. It is naturally: how can we differentiate ourselves from Sony+Android users? Do we get a cool Sailfish sticker with the license or something?

I was trying to hint that it’s impolite to talk in a language other than English on an international forum.

“Dutch is spoken by 20 million people”? So what? German is spoken by >95 million people, and despite that the German-speaking posters here communicate in English (including to each other). This is common courtesy. The same goes for French/Russian/Chinese/etc.

Your not-so-subtle hint to me to go use Google Translate is just a cherry on top.

With punctuation it would have been easier for me to read it. It does not offend me seeing another language. By the way, it were only a few Dutch sentences, nothing important.
German is supported, Tatar is supported, why not Dutch? Does the Jolla team have a grudge against the Dutch? I hope not.

Kea
on August 9, 2017 at 1:20 pm

It’s done. I ordered it. Thank you for the info. Did not give my real age and also not my mobile number. They only should ask if we are 18 +.

Thank you Geert. I searched for it and indeed it is cheaper there. But it is not mentioned that it is an F5121. I don’t know if every Xperia X with 1 sim is the same as an F5121. Could ask at the company.

Love it! I sense an Xperia X F5121 purchase in my near future. Given that I still have my operational N9, I’m trying to time it just right where there are still F5121′s available, but after general availability of the SFOS for it. It sounds like we won’t have too much longer to wait. Yay!